


everything i wanted

by ladyinprocessing



Category: Dynasty (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Breakup, Death of a Parent, Dual Timeline, Enemies to lovers kind of, Exes to Lovers, F/F, Grief, Irresponsible consumption of alcohol, No beta oops, Non-graphic character death, Underage Drinking, baby firby, fluff i guess but not really, i love them but they have to suffer, mentions of illness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27747823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyinprocessing/pseuds/ladyinprocessing
Summary: in which Fallon and Kirby are exes.hangover cure rewrite.
Relationships: Kirby Anders/Fallon Carrington
Comments: 5
Kudos: 26





	1. part one

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Hangover Cure](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18384917) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account). 



> Hi hi! Yes, I am rewriting Hangover Cure again. We're going for third time lucky. Either way, I hope y'all enjoy!

_ 21 _ _ st _ _ December 2018 _ _   
_ _ 00:45 _ _   
_ _ 3 years, 7 months and 8 days post-breakup _

The frozen air did nothing to calm Fallon’s nerves. Gooseflesh crawled up her legs, and the cold brick of Club Colby scuffed the back of her dress and snagged at her hair. Traffic was light for Downtown Atlanta. The sky clear. Her phone didn’t vibrate with texts from her friends asking where she’d disappeared off to, despite it having been almost twenty minutes ago. They were too busy getting ever drunker, while Genevieve got increasingly bitter for not being able to, in celebration of Martha’s twenty-sixth birthday to notice Fallon slipping from the table and out of the propped-open fire exit near the bathrooms.

She didn’t remember when she’d agreed to come out. She had to work the next morning, and she didn’t even like Martha. Martha was Monica and Genevieve’s friend, not Fallon’s. But she had an inability to say no to Monica Colby, had since she could remember. She wasn’t going to start with an invitation for birthday drinks.

Fallon let out a low, frustrated groan when her previously blank notification centre filled with a weather warning for high-speed winds and heavy rain. And she thought the night couldn’t get any worse. Wishful thinking. She swiped to get rid of the notification but was instead presented with her events tab: she had three meetings the next day, one at nine. Sharp. Her chances of showing up without a hangover, even if mild, was almost zero. Blake would have her head.

Late December air bit at her skin, aiding a shudder up her spine. She scrubbed her shivering hands over her bare arms to create heat through friction. A blanket of alcohol-induced warmth hadn’t yet settled over her yet despite her consumption of almost a full bottle of wine. It was almost one and her grasp on sobriety was still hanging over her head, taunting her.

She exhaled a swirl of visible breath and stood upright when another person leaned against the wall a few metres away from her. Fallon watched them dig through their pockets for something from the corner of her eye. When they looked up to meet her gaze, she lowered her own and pretended to check her too-tiny-to-function bag for lipstick and phone.

“Hey, do you have a lighter?” the stranger asked, something achingly familiar in their voice. They were Australian, but the accent was fading around the edges. Like they hadn’t been home in years. A cigarette hung from between their lips.

“No.” Fallon shook her head. The stranger stiffened and nodded, quickly whipping their head to face away from her. Odd.

She dusted off her dress and walked back into the bar, fumbling to come up with an excuse for her extended absence. She didn’t come up with one. No one asked for one.

Someone had poured the remainder of her Sauvignon Blanc into her glass, and the bottle was missing from the table. Genevieve and Martha’s conversation came to a grinding halt when Fallon sat down in her seat in the corner of the booth, their smiles melting to vapid looks of mild disinterest. Monica shrugged when Fallon sent a questioning look her way. As she always did.

Martha and Genevieve’s conversation slowly built back up again until they were both talking quickly and excitedly about Genevieve’s unborn son, which was due in a little over three months. Names and ideas for nursery themes and  _ who do you think he’ll look like?  _ were volleyed back and forth while Monica texted, and Fallon stared into space. This was how many of their nights out ended. If Fallon cared at all, she would have at least tried to contribute. But she’d lost all hope – and interest – of being integral to the dynamic beyond getting them into nice restaurants and having a life complicated enough to keep them entertained.

Fallon spent the next hour on her phone. She had another few glasses of wine. The club was too loud; the music too bass-heavy and people’s laughs too shrill. While the VIP section was much quieter than the rest of the club, it was still loud enough to be anxiety-inducing. She wasn’t even drunk – or rather didn’t feel drunk – yet she could feel her hangover coming on. Three o’clock crept closer, and her patience with her friends weaned with every passing moment. She should be at home, asleep. Her alarm was due to go off in two-and-a-half hours.

Again, Fallon left the table without anyone’s notice. How long could she hide in the bathroom before Genevieve came into check on her? At least ten minutes, surely. She kicked herself for not just leaving. They knew she had to work the next day. They’d understand, barely care. She could leave whenever she wanted.

Her body collided with someone else’s, and much of a glass of vodka and coke sloshed down the front of her dress. A pained gasp forced itself from her throat, the shock of the drink dripping from her dress and onto her feet.

“Sorry!” It was the person from outside. Their familiarity grew tenfold, but Fallon couldn’t for the life of her place them. Perhaps she was drunker than she felt. Fallon swallowed her urge to scream and mustered a pained smile. This could be a blessing. Being soaked in alcoholic soda seemed the perfect excuse for her to leave and go shower.

“It’s all right.” She’d never been so nice to a drunk person – or a sober person, for that matter – but they were her express ticket home. And, she might have known them. Maybe. She wasn’t quite sure.

The stranger stared at her for a moment, features morphing from embarrassed to the thin line between horrified and exasperated. “Let me help you clean up.”

Martha and Genevieve weren’t subtle, nor were they quiet in their whisperings. They didn’t try to be.  _ Is that who I think it is? When did she get back in town? What did she do to her hair? _ But didn’t say who  _ she _ was. If they were going to bitch, they could at least be helpful. Fallon ignored them and followed the maybe-stranger to the bathroom. It was mercifully empty.

The harsh lighting did neither of them any favours. It washed Fallon out, made her hair appear greasy. Both of their makeup was cakey and missing around their noses. The maybe-stranger looked sallow, almost sick under the yellowish overheads, her red hair tangling at the ends. Fallon kept her gaze on her them for another few seconds, let her eyes roam over their features. The slope of their nose. The curve of their stress-chewed lips. The freckles across their collarbones and peeking through their foundation.

“Fallon, I am so sorry.”

Kirby. It was Kirby. She was wearing a black dress that looked like it was made from plastic, and couldn't possibly have been comfortable, and a pair of those horrible chunky white sneakers. She looked the same, but so different. Older, probably. Not twenty-two anymore.

How hadn’t Fallon known she was back in town? Fallon never unfollowed Kirby on Instagram, and Kirby hadn’t unfollowed Fallon. They saw each other’s posts without interacting or viewing one another’s stories. And Fallon never realised her ex-girlfriend had moved back from the other side of the planet. Fallon knew that Kirby had gone back to her natural hair colour seven months ago, that she was dating an Egyptian girl with long dark hair and facial piercings and that she hadn’t spoken to one of her sisters in almost four years. Instagram could tell a person a lot about Kirby, but not that she’d packed up her suburban Perth life and moved back to Atlanta after so long away. It was like she didn’t want Fallon to know.

Fallon went to the closet stall and wrapped an environmentally unfriendly amount of toilet paper around her hand. She dabbed at the large navy stain the drink had left on her periwinkle blue dress, the smell of vodka hanging heavy in her nose. Her heart beat a mile a minute in her ribcage, her fingers practically vibrating. This was not happening. She was not standing in a tiny public bathroom with her ex-girlfriend. It wasn’t happening. There was no way.

“It’s whatever.”

The dress could be salvaged with an expensive dry-cleaning bill. Fallon didn’t care about the dress. She dropped the wad of sopping toilet paper into the wastebasket next to the sink and grabbed the roll. She ripped off another handful, mopping up the bottom of her dress and then her legs and the tops of her shoes. Kirby’s eyes burned holes in her every movement, but Fallon refused to look up. If she waited long enough, hopefully, Kirby would take the hint and leave. But she stayed there, leaning against the counter, bathing in the brunette’s discomfort.

“You were blonde last time I saw you,” Kirby said. She rested her head against the wall, her eyes tired. It was almost conversational but fell a foot short. Every word came a little forced, nearly painful. Kirby knew what Fallon looked like.

“Weren’t you still dyeing your hair then, too?” Fallon asked as if she couldn’t remember spending hours touching up Kirby’s roots with box-dye in the shade  _ chocolate caramel _ in the bathroom of their old apartment, and in the bathroom closest to Kirby’s bedroom in the manor. Every third Saturday like clockwork since they were fourteen. That wasn’t something she just forgot.

“Yeah, I was.”

Kirby was staring at Fallon’s hand, not at her. At her engagement ring. Fallon nodded, shifting her weight from foot to foot. She pushed her left arm behind her back. Hid it.

Fallon’s phone chirped from her bag. She dug it out to find two texts from Monica.

**_Monica:_ ** _ we’re getting a cab _

**_Monica:_ ** _ when did kirby get back in town? _

Fallon sighed and pulled a hand through her hair.

**_Fallon:_ ** _ I’ll get my own ride. See you later. _

Kirby cleared her throat and folded her arms over herself. Fallon’s eyes flicked to her, her chest clenching. Kirby stared back, her lips halfway between a frown and a grimace.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. Her shoulders tightened and curled inwards. “I can pay for your dry-cleaning or something. Sorry.” She still apologised too much. That hadn’t changed.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to do that.” Fallon stepped back from the counter and lifted her bag onto her shoulder. She opened the Uber app. “I’ll uh… I’ll see you around, Kirby.”

She hadn’t seen Kirby in three-and-a-half years, maybe some over. Hadn’t seen her since Kirby left Fallon’s hotel room in Perth. Since they’d broken up. Fallon was sure she’d never see Kirby again after that, not so casually. Maybe at a wedding or a funeral, not at Club Colby on a Thursday night – Friday morning now. It wasn’t fair. Kirby stayed in Australia, chose to stay there over staying with Fallon. She didn’t get to come back without any warning. She had no right to.

Fallon turned around and made her way out of the bathroom, opening the doors with her elbow. The door handles were always suspiciously sticky. Kirby came a beat behind her, their unsynchronised footsteps echoing in the empty corridor. Fallon held her breath until they made it back out to the club. Her Uber would be fifteen minutes.

Kirby followed her to the bar and stood too close to her in the small line to order. Fallon could smell her perfume; it was the same as she always wore; cheap and too sweet. She was too close. Kirby ground her teeth while she waited, fingers drumming on the counter of the bar. As impatient as ever. Fallon kept her gaze on the other woman from the corner of her eye. If Kirby noticed, she didn’t say anything. Fallon didn’t say anything, either. Even if she wanted to, her tongue had curled itself in a ball and refused to work.

“I’ll have a vodka and coke, and a Southside, please.” Fallon was supposed to be next, but Kirby swooped in and got there before her. Kirby turned to her. “Southside’s still your favourite, right?” Fallon shook her head, her tongue knotting tighter. It was still her favourite; she hadn’t expected Kirby to remember. Not that Fallon had forgotten a single detail about  _ her _ . She hadn’t expected it to work both ways.

“No Southside. I’m just paying my tab.” Fallon sidestepped away from Kirby, putting her next in line. Kirby opened her mouth to protest but Fallon held up a hand to stop her. “My Uber will be here in ten minutes. I don’t have time for another drink.”

The bartender hand Kirby her drink, and with one last look at her ex-girlfriend, she crossed the room to a table close to the stairs. Fallon handed the bartender her card with a smile and brought her phone from her bag again and sent Liam a quick text to tell him she’d be home soon. He’d be long asleep, but he’d appreciate the gesture when he woke up the next morning.

* * *

_ 21 _ _ st _ _ December 2018 _ _   
_ _ 03:45 _ _   
_ _ 3 years, 7 months and 8 days post-breakup _

Fallon slid into bed next to a sleeping Liam and wrapped her arms around him. She rested her head on his shoulder with a contented sigh and closed her eyes. She slowed her breath and relaxed her body. But sleep would not consume her. Exhaustion pulled at her, forcing her eyelids shut, but she could not sleep.

Something niggled at the back of her mind, anchoring her to consciousness. Drinking usually made her sleepy, and she could fall asleep virtually anywhere when she was drunk. Somehow this time was different. She didn’t like it.

It dawned on her that it probably had to do with seeing Kirby. Which made her being awake at almost four in the morning all that much worse. Fallon had spent the last three-and-a-half years pretending not to think about Kirby, but, now, she’d been stripped of that luxury. Kirby was plucked from the place in Fallon’s mind she only ventured to when she was sure everyone else was asleep, and dropped right in her lap. When they’d first broken up, Fallon didn’t think she’d cope without Kirby. But the thought of bumping into her again seemed worse than that. Like an invasion of her privacy. It was as though fate had betrayed her; broken an unspoken promise she didn’t remember making. They weren’t supposed to see another again.

Kirby had no right to crawl out of the padlocked box in the back of Fallon’s mind and take up more space than she had been allowed.

Liam shifted his weight and hooked his arm around Fallon’s waist, pulling her closer to him. She pressed a kiss to his jaw and closing her eyes again, begging herself to fall asleep. She had to be at work in two hours. She had three meetings the next morning. She had to fall asleep.

She did, eventually, with forty-five minutes left before her alarm went off.

* * *

_ 21 _ _ st _ _ December 2018 _ _   
_ _ 06:30 _ _   
_ __ 3 years, 7 months and 8 days post-breakup

The Carrington Atlantic office building reeked of cheap, lemon-scented cleaning products, as it did every morning before most of the staff arrived and the stink of burned black coffee overwhelmed the place. The foyer shone brightly, the winter sun reflecting off the polished white floors. Fallon walked through with her handbag clutched tightly to her body, and her spine stiff as a board. A few interns and those on track for a promotion passed her, offering polite smiles she didn’t return as they went. She did not have the energy to smile at strangers.

She hadn’t been this early to work since she’d been promoted to COO and head of public relations – overzealous early mornings and late nights weren’t often necessary anymore; she was the highest-up in the company she could be until her father retired – and she hadn’t been this tired since college. But this was her first big project in months. She had things to do.

She took the stairs two at a time, the emptiness of the stairwell laying an uneasy hand on her shoulder. The floor-to-ceiling windows looked out at the overcast sky, droplets of rain clinging to the glass. She stopped a floor short of her office and turned to look out at the view of the practically empty parking lot, and the greying Buckhead skyline. How she wished she was back in bed.

Fallon yawned and continued upwards to her floor. She had never been so glad to see her too small for her pay-grade office. Somehow, her office always calmed her down. She turned on the light, sending a worried glance out the window at the ever-darkening sky. She sat down behind her desk and stretched her arms above her head before logging onto her computer.

She drummed her fingers against the desk, impatiently watching the buffering sign pinwheel as her emails loaded. Dozens appeared in her inbox, all of them detailing the plan for the Carrington Atlantic and Van Kirk Industries merger, or her assistant’s constant nagging about the cleaner energy project coming up. Allison liked to harp on about projects that were not quite finished until Fallon threatened to fire her. Fallon’s eyes caught the to-do list in the sidebar of her calendar and sighed at the sheer number of tasks she had to do. She cracked her fingers and opened the Google Doc for the cleaner energy project and got to work.

She’d been working for half an hour when other members of her department started trickling in. She watched them pass through the small window in her office door, pulling her rings on and off her fingers. She was already getting distracted, too tired to continue. Her forty-five minutes of sleep wasn’t nearly enough to keep her eyes open. She wasn’t going to make it through even half of the day.

A sharp rap on her door brought her attention away from how tired she was for a second. Allison stood outside, shifting her posture, looking anxious as ever. She knocked again when she didn’t get an immediate answer from her boss.

“Yes, come in! My God!” Fallon said, rubbing her temples, a headache looming over her. Her assistant entered the room with three Starbucks to-go cups in her hands. Fallon only asked for one but was more than grateful for the extras. She needed them. She barely felt like a person.

Allison pulled her iPad from under her arm and rattled off Fallon’s schedule for the day, listing her meetings and everything that was already on her to-do list.

“And the photographer pulled out, so we’ll have to hire a new one by next week. I’ll get a new one by the end of today.”

Fallon nodded and grabbed the coffee closest to her, shooing Allison out of the room with her free hand. Her assistant gave a nervous smile and scurried out of the room with a nervous smile. Fallon took a sip from her cup and recoiled slightly. Allison had gotten her order wrong. Again. As she did almost every morning.

She locked her computer and stood from her desk and left her office for the board room on the third floor for her first meeting of the day.


	2. part two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I just wanted to thank Eira for beta reading this for me! Happy reading!

_ 21 _ _ st _ _ December 2018 _ _   
_ _ 04:10 _ _   
_ _ 3 years, 7 months and 8 days post-breakup _

Kirby locked the front door of her apartment behind her and leant against it for a moment. She should have come home much sooner. Even though she’d barely turned twenty-five a few months ago (nine months, actually, but she wasn’t about to admit that to herself), she felt too old to be out all night. Cold wind greeted her as she slid open the balcony door and stepped outside; every hair on her arms stood to attention. Without looking, she opened her purse and groped around for her pack of cigarettes. She’d managed to get a lighter from a guy a little while after she’d asked Fallon for one, and she didn’t give it back for him. It was a cheap one, anyway, she didn’t think he’d miss it. She took the cigarette between her lips and lit it. Taking a drag, she shut the balcony door and walked to the railing to watch a car zoom past, forty miles-per-hour over the speed limit, at least. Her finger stopped shaking, but she was beginning to feel ill. She inhaled again.

Kirby knew that Monica and Jeff owned Club Colby. It didn’t take much to put two and two together; they were plastered all over the club’s Facebook page and everything about the place was very  _ them _ — the decor, the music… even the people that frequented. When Kirby’s friends invited her there, she’d hyped herself up to possibly run into one of them, maybe even both of them. But she hadn’t thought she’d bump into Fallon. It was the last thing she’d wanted. Or expected. And she wasn’t wrong to expect otherwise, either. Her ex-girlfriend wasn’t exactly the type to go clubbing past one AM on a school night. But Kirby didn’t know Fallon anymore. Hadn’t in years.

She didn’t smoke her cigarette past her initial drags, and it burned out quickly. Before she knew it, the ash had almost reached her fingers and she’d very nearly burned herself. Lilah would have yelled at her for that had she been there. She’d yell at Kirby for smoking in the first place. Thank God Lilah wasn’t there; Kirby was too drunk and too tired to listen to her lectures about lung health. She’d heard it before, from more than her roommate. She knew.

Kirby dropped the butt of the burnt-out cigarette into the trashcan and slipped back inside. The apartment was eerily quiet without the usual sounds of Henry yelling to be fed despite having been only an hour ago, and Lilah’s constant playing of Post Malone. This annoyed Kirby to no end, but she put up with it- she really liked Lilah, and their vastly differing taste in music would not ruin that. She’d destroyed one relationship with things as menial as that before, and she wasn’t going to do it again. One was more than enough.

She shuffled into her bedroom, the need to take off her makeup not even crossing her mind. That was a problem for tomorrow-Kirby. Right now, Kirby’s one and only problem was falling asleep, and as soon as possible. She peeled her jacket from around her shoulders and threw it on her desk chair to join the steadily growing mountain of other clothes that needed to be put away. Another problem for future-Kirby. She fell into bed, above the comfort, and closed her eyes.

And then her phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times.

Though every fibre in her body protested it, she sat up again and crossed the room to her desk chair to search her pockets for her phone. She squinted at the bright light.  _ Unknown Caller _ . She could have cried. Hung up.

She got back in bed, and she was out like a light.

* * *

_ 21 _ _ st _ _ December 2018 _ _   
_ _ 07:15 _ _   
_ _ 3 years, 7 months and 8 days post-breakup _

Joseph Anders demanded a phone call from his daughter at least once a week. He was always the one to initiate the calls, and always before Kirby was awake. Without fail. Every single Friday at a quarter past seven in the morning. Kirby hated it. The calls always woke her, yet she never made any effort to wake up earlier for them. She was fine being shocked awake by her father’s ringtone rather than her alarm.

Her head throbbed the moment she opened her eyes, the winter sun shining through the tilted blinds — she hadn’t remembered to close them the night before — not helping at all. She pulled her arm from beneath the comforter and felt around her nightstand for her phone. Every movement came with great reluctance. She grabbed it, her vision a little blurry still. Yawning, she sat up, the sudden change of position making her nauseous, and answered the phone. She had a crick in her neck.

“Hello?” Her voice was groggy, glazed over with sleep and a little bit (read: a lot) of hangover. She rubbed her eyes before finally blinking them into focus.

“Good morning, darling,” her father greeted, his tone solemn and serious as ever. She could just see him standing in the kitchen doorway, his face indifferent, bordering on irritated. He had so many things to do, and a staff member was probably late. One always was. “Do you have plans for Tuesday?”

Kirby yawned again. “Tuesday is Christmas, Dad.”

“I’m glad you know what day it is. Are you free? I was hoping you’d come by for dinner. We haven’t spent Christmas together in quite some time.” Not since she’d moved back to Australia. And he’d expected to see her more since she was back in Atlanta, but that hadn’t been the case so far. She’d been a no-show at Thanksgiving, too.

Kirby hesitated, swallowing hard. She didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to go anywhere near the Carringtons for as long as she could muster. But her father was right, as he always was. An insufferable quality of his. They hadn’t spent a holiday together in over four years. Guilt swelled in her chest, only marginally surpassing the dislike for the family she used to call her own.

“I don’t know, Dad. Lilah and I were planning on having a small dinner here. You could join us, if you want.” As if he’d ever agree to eat Lilah’s vegan Christmas dinner. Or eat anything Lilah put in front of him.

He sighed, exasperation evident in the action. Her father did not like their apartment; claimed his daughter lived in squalor — she didn’t. A two-bedroom apartment in downtown Atlanta was not squalor. It just wasn’t the twenty-eight-million-dollar mansion in Buckhead that he was used to. He was going to refuse, and they were going to spend their fifth Christmas apart.

“Please, Kirby. I want to see my daughter on Christmas.” And there was the guilt trip. Her father loved to pull the  _ you moved away without any notice and didn’t talk to anyone for seven months  _ card, and often. It had been three-and-a-half years. He really had to get over it already. She had never guilt-tripped him for leaving her in Australia for the first fourteen years of her life, but the same standards didn’t apply to him, apparently. 

“I really don’t want to see them. Or go to the house. I’m not ready,” she said, pretending to get choked up. She didn’t like the Carringtons, but not to the point where she’d cry at the mere thought of seeing them. He didn’t have to know that. “Please don’t make me go.”

He sighed again, this time surely for dramatic effect. “Fine. I’ll come visit the day after Christmas. I have to be here day-of. Mr Carrington expects it.” Of course, Blake expected him to be there. And, of course, her father obliged. That family had him wrapped around their collective little finger.

Kirby hung up first, almost fully awake. She dropped her phone in her lap and looked around her room, frowning at the mess. It was embarrassing. She was usually quite neat, good at keeping her room tidy. As of late, she’d fallen off that horse. Worn, but not yet dirty, clothes lay strewn across her dark wooden floor, and a large portion of her shoes lay in a pile next to her closet. Her makeup wasn’t stored in its acrylic organiser the way it should have been, and her laundry basket, which Henry was laying asleep in, was close to overflowing. She should tackle that today- there was nothing better to do.

Kirby threw her legs over the edge of the bed, dragging herself up with the little energy she’d obtained from the minute amount of sleep she’d gotten. She needed to go to bed earlier. Her four-in-the-morning bedtime was catching up with her and she needed coffee. Now. Henry woke up and jumped from his nest, and weaved through her legs on her way to the kitchen, mewling hungrily.

Lilah was already up. She always was at this time; she had to be at work by eight thirty. She was a junior sales rep at a pharmaceutical company that Kirby could never remember the name of — a respectable job that people didn’t wince at when they thought of her paycheck. Kirby was a freelance photographer with barely any consistent clients. She still wasn’t sure how they were both only just able to afford the rent. Kirby thanked her lucky stars her father was so generous with his own salary, otherwise, she’d be back in Perth, living with her teenage sister part-time.

Lilah stood next to the sink, already dressed, stirring her tea and reading the news on her iPad. Kirby passed her without a word, starting on making her coffee. The toaster popped, and the other woman went to go fetch her breakfast. Toast and blackberry jam. The same as it was every day. Lilah liked her routine.

“You were out late last night,” she said, returning the milk and the jam to the fridge. It was teasing, a laugh implied in her tone. Kirby grumbled in response, leaning her forehead on an overhead cabinet, her eyes closed. “How are you feeling?” Lilah moved to the couch, sipping her tea as she went. Once her mug was full of creamy caffeine, Kirby followed. The clock on the wall ticked louder than usual, the scraping of their upstairs neighbours’ dining room chairs floating down from the ceiling. Beneath her temples burned.

“I’m fine. Exhausted, but okay. What about you?”

“I’m okay,” Lilah said.

“Good.”

Kirby stared at Lilah for a moment. Traced her eyes over her silky black hair, and her full lips and her rosy cheeks flecked with sun damage. Her nose and left eyebrow were pierced. Kirby’s mother would have said she was too pretty for her own good; she’d said the same thing about Fallon. Kirby secretly agreed. She averted her gaze, but not before Lilah caught her, and winked with a smile.

She drank her coffee in what felt like three large gulps and stared into space for a while. Her encounter with Fallon the night before still played on her mind. She tried to shove it to the back of her subconscious; deal with it later. Add it to her to-do list for future-Kirby to come to terms with. But it would not go away. No feelings were attached, just the thought of Fallon existing plagued her. Until Lilah stood up and crossed the floor to stand over her. She leant down and pecked Kirby on the lips, despite their morning breath, then walked away to lift her coat from the rack next to the door. She left with a goodbye and the blow of another kiss. Kirby returned it, blush burning her cheeks.

The apartment was still again, and Kirby could hear herself think. Not that that was something she wanted. Fallon clawed her way back to the forefront of Kirby’s mind, quicker than she’d predicted. Or hoped. It was almost impressive. Key word,  _ almost. _

Their interaction the night before had lasted no longer than fifteen minutes, if that, but passing time felt like wading in molasses. Like every second spent with Fallon lasted an hour. She’d never had this problem before; time would fly when they were together. It had been a long time.

Kirby may have resented Fallon with everything she had, but the thought of her ex still played with her heartstrings. A twinge here when a member of Fallon’s family was on the news for going missing or buying up yet another company or setting something on fire. Another there when every fashion account on Instagram reposted her pictures with a million and one heart eye emojis, fawning over her ridiculous brightly coloured pantsuits and underwear she wore as clothes. The twinges were worst when TMZ leaked photos of Fallon and her fiancé on their cute little dates to expensive restaurants. Kirby wasn’t sure if it hurt so bad because Fallon had moved on, or if it was because Kirby hadn’t. Not fully.

* * *

_ 22 _ _ nd _ _ December 2018 _ _   
_ _ 22:00 _ _   
_ __ 3 years, 7 months and 9 days post-breakup

The heating was out. Again. And, in mid-December, their cramped apartment soon grew freezing. Lilah had already retired to a friend’s house. She claimed that being from Arizona gave her the inability to withstand the cold – as if Kirby wasn’t from Australia. Henry complained loudly from the armchair across the room, staring at her with his large, orange eyes.

“Stop looking at me like that. We’re not leaving. We’ll be fine,” Kirby said, shivering as she looked through her Netflix queue. Despite being buried in a large pile of blankets and her wearing several layers of sweaters and hoodies, she was beyond cold. It was right into her bones. She knew she’d have to leave at some point. She couldn’t stay in the apartment much longer, or she was afraid she’d get frostbite. But the only person she could turn to was her father, and hell would freeze over before she’d sleep under the same roof as Fallon Carrington again. The last time had been painful, traumatic even. Kirby would have given anything not to have to do it again.

The overhead light flickered and dimmed, and Kirby’s phone stopped charging. The electricity shuddered off and the apartment sunk into near pitch darkness, the only light the warmth of the streetlamps glowing faintly outside. Rain thrummed against the windows and the balcony door. Thunder rumbled in the distance. This happened every time. Every time it stormed, at least badly, the power died, and the heating waned. The bottom floor of their building would flood. Kirby and Lilah really should have been more prepared than they were. Kirby no longer had the choice to stay. She was going to have to go to Buckhead.

She stared at her father’s contact for minutes on end, trying to build herself up enough to accept she’d have to see the Carringtons a week before originally planned. Her father was delighted, spoke about how he never got to see his daughter. Not that he tried to see her often. Kirby hummed in what she hoped sounded like agreement, and almost burst with gratitude when he said he’d send a car for her. It would be there in forty minutes. She packed up three days-worth of clothes and wrangled Henry into his travel crate.

Kirby didn’t know the driver. Culhane must have moved on to bigger and better things. Good for him. The drive was only twenty-five minutes without the usual traffic. The area she lived in cleared quickly when it rained.

Carrington Manor was exactly the same as she remembered it. White marble floors, expensive bouquets in more expensive vases in the foyer, the faint smell of champagne hanging in the air. It was uncomfortably familiar, like visiting your elementary school after you graduate high school. It almost felt like home, but everything was moved two inches to the left.

Kirby felt like she was fifteen again, nearly tripping downstairs the time Fallon let her borrow a pair of heels she didn’t need. The first time Steven left flashed in front of her eyes, the pleading, the hastily packed bags, and the violent slam of the large front doors. Blake and Alexis’s final fights echoed in the tall ceiling, bounced off the chandelier. Kirby could practically smell Mrs Gunnerson’s Thanksgiving dinners wafting from the kitchen.

A shiver ran up her spine. She swallowed the nostalgia and smiled as her father rounded the corner and caught her eye. He quickened his pace, and wrapped his arms around her when he reached her. Kirby dropped her bags and returned this hug with one arm, Henry’s crate still in the other, and inhaled sharply at the contact. Her father pulled away first, and took her bags. He turned around and marched down the corridor with her things without another word, leaving her to familiarise herself with the place again. As if she’d ever forgotten a detail about the house.


	3. part three

_ 22 _ _ nd _ _ November 2008 _ _   
_ _ 15:45 _ _   
_ _ 6 years, 5 months and 25 days pre-breakup _

Fallon got out of the car first and regretted her outfit immediately. Her father had been right, of course. Late November chill crawled up her bare legs, dragging gooseflesh up with it. The sun sunk low in the sky, soft apricot and coral clouds wisping behind the row of buildings across the road. She shivered as she shut the door, turning to see if Kirby had followed her. The other girl walked to the kerb and stood next to Fallon, waving to the driver in thanks. 

Fallon grabbed Kirby by the wrist and started towards the cinema. Their friends were waiting on them, yelling at them to hurry up once spotted. The movie started in ten minutes, and they hadn’t even bought their tickets yet. Even from several hundred metres away, Fallon could see passersby glaring at her friends. Middle-aged women with gaggles of children sent disapproving looks, muttering under their breath. Fallon didn’t have to be close to see. It was the same every time they went out as a group. Seven loud teenagers in one group never boded well with the general public.

“Why are you two always so late for everything?” Trixie asked, meeting them at the bottom of the steps leading up to the cinema. She replaced Fallon’s hand on Kirby’s wrist with her own and pulled her towards Martha, who was already walking inside. Fallon pursed her lips at them. And how easily Kirby had gone with them. Kirby was Fallon’s best friend. Not Trixie’s; not Martha’s. Why had she gone with them so easily?

Kirby laughed in response, loud and bell-like. She said something, too. But Fallon didn’t catch it. It was probably something to do with Fallon taking too long in the bathroom or a fake excuse about traffic in Buckhead. 

Fallon crossed her arms and walked up the stairs after them, a few beats behind. The rest of the group — Monica, Genevieve and Robby — had already traipsed inside, making most of the noise. Robby bought the tickets, as promised. He was the reason they were all going to watch  _ Twilight _ the Saturday before exam week. Kirby and Genevieve had yelled at him when he’d suggested it on Monday at lunch. Partly because of the tests they had days later, mostly because the existence of sparkly vampires offended them somehow. And yet here they were. They made a beeline for the concessions stand and Kirby stopped, turning around.

“Babes, will you come to the bathroom with me?” she asked when Fallon got to her. She was losing her accent. Binge-watching Nicole Kidman interviews to prevent such a thing from happening wasn’t working, apparently. What a shocking turn of events. “Trixie is getting us popcorn.” Fallon nodded and followed her, flats dragging on the colourfully carpeted floor.

The bathrooms smelled of Victoria's Secret body spray and bleach. The mirrors were soap-spotted, and the floor was wet; puddles of water pooling under one of the stalls and under the hand drier. Fallon stood at the door and watched Kirby venture further inside, deciding she’d never step foot in a public bathroom again.

Kirby pulled her into a stall with her, closing and locking the door behind them before Fallon could protest. She opened her mouth to; the words waiting behind her teeth. Kirby pushed her against the door, and the row of stalls shuddered and creaked with the motion. 

“Why am I in here with you?” Fallon asked, trying her very hardest to sound nonchalant. She doubted she did. Her heart rate picked up, thumping in her throat. They were too close together; a stumble and Fallon would be in Kirby’s arms. Fallon’s face burned under her caked-on, slightly orange foundation.

“I need to talk to you about something,” Kirby said, her voice on the edge of a tremble. She locked her fingers together, squeezing tight, her knuckles pink with tension. “It’s important.”

“And you’re going to do it in a movie theatre bathroom?” Fallon asked. It was supposed to be teasing, but it came off more afraid than anything. Like she thought she was in trouble. Or was about to be.

“I just can’t keep it in anymore. And I don’t think I’ll be able to hide it anymore. I need to tell you.” Kirby crossed one leg in front of the other. A heavy sigh. “You can keep a secret, right? I can tell you anything, right?”

God, something was wrong. Very, very wrong. Fallon had known Kirby a long, long time, and she had never seen her like this. Ever. Even clamped together, her hands were shaking. She was nervous. Something was wrong. “Of course. Are you okay?” Fallon nodded. Gears whirred in her head, trying to figure out what was going on before Kirby told her. She needed to know. “Do you need help?” Fallon tried to reach out to touch Kirby’s shoulder, but Kirby flinched so hard she put several inches between them.

Kirby choked on nothing, snorting. “No. You’re being so serious.” She dislodged her fingers and pulled one hand through her hair, messing with the parting. Fallon stared at her, itchy with anticipation. Curiosity burned the back of her throat. She said nothing, waiting for the other girl to say something. Kirby inhaled but didn’t exhale. She straightened her back; stood up straight. False confidence radiated from her. 

“I think I’ve known this about myself for a really long time. It’s just something I didn’t want to be true, you know? Well… You probably don’t. God, I’m already rambling. I don’t know how to say this. It’s just really hard to say out loud, I guess? I’ve been telling myself that this is something I can’t be. But, I am. And that’s okay. I’m allowed to be who I am.”

Kirby stared Fallon right in the face as she spoke, almost unblinking. Fallon stared back, her chest tightening in a way that it never had before. She didn’t know what Kirby was talking about, but she felt the words. Something about what Kirby said settled in her bones, and something inside her clicked. It felt as though Fallon was one piece away from solving a puzzle she wasn’t aware of starting.

“What?” The word was light, and it was a wonder it was audible. Fallon almost choked on it.

“What I’m trying to say is.” Kirby paused, her mind elsewhere. She leant back on her heels. “I have a girlfriend.” Fallon was sure she was trying to say  _ I’m gay, _ or something to that effect, but it was enough. She got her point across.

Something roared inside Fallon, clawing its way up into her chest and curling itself around her heart. Inexplicable anger bubbled in her veins with her blood, her flush no longer from the embarrassment she couldn’t explain. How long had Kirby been keeping this from her? Why hadn’t she told her earlier? They told each other everything, no matter what. As they happened. Why was this any different? Kirby knew everything about Fallon, why couldn’t Fallon know everything about Kirby?

Fallon leant back against the stall door and nodded. She didn’t know what she was supposed to say. She tried to think back to when Steven came out to the year before, but she drew a complete blank. What she knew, though, was that she was reacting badly. Even internally. She had to say something. Anything. She owed Kirby a response, at the very least.

“So, you’re, like, gay?” The words were harsher than intended, a moderate bitterness clinging around their edges. And it probably wasn’t the right thing to say. “I mean, I’m happy for you. So happy for you. This is just a surprise.” It wasn’t. Fallon knew. Sort of. She’d had her suspicions. No straight girl liked Megan Fox the way Kirby did. 

Kirby shrugged. “I don’t know. I like girls. I don’t know how I feel about boys yet.” She looked different. Lighter, maybe. Like this has been chaining her to the ground.

Tears pricked the back of Fallon’s eyes. Why the hell was she crying? Kirby wasn’t even crying. What the hell was wrong with her? “I’m so proud of you. Thank you for telling me. Even if it was in a bathroom.”

She opened her arms and pulled Kirby into her. Kirby gave a watery laugh. Fallon inhaled the scent of her pear shampoo. She didn’t want to ever let go. 

“Fallon, you’re my best friend, you know that? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I just wasn’t ready.” But she was ready enough to tell some girl. “I… I’m telling you now because it’s Trixie. I’m dating her.”

Trixie. As in the Trixie who was getting the popcorn. The Trixie who Fallon had introduced Kirby to. The Trixie who was Fallon’s friend first. Just how Kirby was Fallon’s friend first.

Fallon should have seen this coming. Kirby and Trixie practically sat on top of one another at lunchtime and when they were together outside of school. They looked for each other in groups. They look at each other like the sun shone out of their ass. Fallon should have known.

She clung to Kirby tighter, every inch of her hurting. “She’s cute. You did good, Kirb.” She shook her head, her forehead pressed into Kirby’s neck. “I love you,” she whispered, the words pushing a weight to her shoulders. “So much.” 

“I love you too, babes. The most.”

* * *

_ 31 _ _ st _ _ December 2008 _ _   
_ _ 23:45 _ _   
_ _ 6 years, 4 months and 13 days pre-breakup _

“I like your lipgloss,” Fallon said, sitting forward on the couch. It was lumpy and the brown leather was sticking to her thighs. Beads of her drink’s sweat dripped onto the hem of her skirt. She was so glad she’d snuck down to the basement. Robby had told her to meet her there — before he’d gotten sick — and it was out of bounds for the other guest. It was the perfect place to bring Kirby.

“Thanks.” Kirby shifted in her seat, her eyes flicking to the basement door every so often. She thought they were going to get caught. It was cute. Really. It was clear as mud she’d never been to one of Robby’s parties before. “Are you sure it’s okay that we’re down here?”

Fallon rolled her eyes. Kirby was always worrying about something. Getting in trouble, mostly. Sometimes, it seemed like she forgot who she was friends with. Fallon Carrington did not get in trouble. “Yes. Would we be down here if we weren’t allowed?” Fallon didn’t give time for Kirby to answer. Because her answer would be  _ yes _ . A large, resounding yes. They went so many places they weren’t supposed to go; did so many things they weren’t supposed to. They were teenagers. That’s what they were supposed to do, wasn’t it? To act up and see how far they could cross the line without consequences. They were young. They could do whatever they wanted. Kirby sent her a look that somehow combined disapproval and skepticism. She had a talent for pulling faces at Fallon. “Robby said I could come down here if the party got too much for me. And, it clearly got too much for you, so I think it’s fine.” Still, Kirby didn’t seem convinced. Kirby never seemed convinced. 

“Thank you,” she said. And it was so genuine Fallon thought she might cry. She nodded, wrapping her free arm tighter around herself. “It was  _ so loud _ up there.” Well, of course. It was a New Year’s Eve party hosted by a sixteen-year-old boy whose parents were out of town. It would hardly be timid get-together. She waited a beat before continuing, looking around the dingy room, her nose wrinkled. The room smelled slightly of damp and the carpet was a putrid shade of brown and the walls looked almost sticky. It was hardly a nice place to calm down in. But it was nicer than the rooms filled with dozens of sweaty teenagers dancing to vaguely homoerotic Katy Perry songs. “But you don’t have to stay here with me. It’s almost midnight. You should go celebrate or whatever.” God, it was so obvious that Kirby had never been to one of these parties. Or any party. Bless her. 

Fallon scoffed and waved a dismissive hand. Yes, she would much rather be upstairs actually enjoying the party. But Kirby needed her. And Kirby was her best friend. And had asked Fallon to help calm her down instead of Trixie — mostly because Trixie had gone home already, but Fallon wasn’t one to dwell on minor details like that. She wasn’t about to give that up. What kind of best friend would she be if she left Kirby sitting down in the creepy basement to come down from a panic attack on her own? 

“It’s nothing. The party is lame anyway. No one fun is here, anyway.” That wasn’t true. The party had been plenty fun so far, but it would get significantly duller without Kirby’s snarky comments about Genevieve’s new boyfriend. So, Fallon decided that sitting in the weird basement that probably was home to a nest of rats or something equally shriek-inducing with Kirby was a better deal than going upstairs again. “Are you feeling better?” She seemed to. Her breathing was waning to normal, and she wasn’t on the verge of tears anymore. 

“Yeah, I’m great. Thanks.” Kirby was a terrible liar. Always had been. Fallon thought it was cute, honestly. It wasn’t a bad thing — to be a poor liar — it just wasn’t useful. But it was fine. Fallon was a good enough liar for both of them.

An excited buzz seeped through the floor and into the basement. The junior posing as a DJ had turned T.I. and Rihanna down a few decibels, and chattering crept under the door at the top of the stairs. It was a minute to midnight. Fallon’s fingers started tingling. She was supposed to be with Robby. He was her boyfriend, after all. Even if only for four months. It was her longest relationship to date, and she needed to be serious about it. He was serious about it, apparently. He’d invited her down to the basement. They were supposed to kiss at midnight, but he was upstairs sick after three wine coolers. Lightweight.

Kirby crossed her ankles and found sudden interest in her chipped bubblegum pink nail polish. She’d chewed most of it off. She had the worst habit of biting her nails. It was almost as bad as her teeth grinding. Fallon hated it. It was the one, and only, thing she didn’t like about Kirby.

“ _ Ten, nine, eight…” _

Fallon wiped her hands on her legs, her fingers tapping on her skin. Nervous habit. “Do me a favour?” 

“ _ Five, four three…” _

“Sure.”

_ “Two, one!” _

“Kiss me.”

_ “Happy New Year!” _

“What?”

“Kiss me,” Fallon repeated, though she tried to swallow the words as she said them. This was a bad idea. A terrible idea. What the hell was she doing? Why would she kiss Kirby? First of all, Fallon was straight. Strictly heterosexual. Second, both of them were in relationships — long-term relationships. Happy long-term relationships. 

She wasn’t opposed to the idea of kissing Kirby. She was pretty — beautiful, even — and smelled like something sugary all the time. Vanilla maybe. And Fallon liked Kirby more than anyone else in the world. It made sense, in a platonic way. Best friends kiss all the time. Fallon was sure of it. 

“Okay,” Kirby said, and scooted a few inches closer to Fallon. It probably wasn’t even midnight anymore. A few minutes after. Did it even count as a New Year’s kiss if it wasn’t exactly at midnight? Fallon pretended it was. You’re supposed to spend the rest of the year with the person you kissed, and Fallon liked the idea of spending the rest of the year with Kirby. Longer is she was lucky enough.

“Okay?” It was Fallon’s turn to have trouble breathing. This was happening. In a strictly friendly manner. No feelings — romantic feelings — attached. Of course not. Straight girls didn’t kiss other girls with romantic feelings attached. But, it was fine. Fallon didn’t think of Kirby romantically. That would be weird. 

Kirby nodded and got closer to Fallon again. Fallon was scared she’d start sweating. She’d never kissed a girl before. Obviously. Was it different to kissing a boy? Probably. Boys their age were gross and most of them were growing sad facial hair, or beginning to. Girls were softer than boys, right? Sweeter. Kirby probably tasted of something nicer than root beer. 

It was only a peck. Barely a kiss at all. And it was better than Fallon had expected it to be. She hadn’t thought it would be bad. Because Kirby was good at everything — everything but lying. But she hadn’t expected  _ that _ . Fallon felt like she had a fever. Her whole body was on fire, gooseflesh spreading like a pale rash across her legs and arms. That never happened when she kissed Robby. Not once. But it probably didn’t mean anything. Fallon was just a little drunk.

Kirby seemed pretty much unfazed. She scooted away again and inspected the empty washing machine on the other side of the room. Fallon stared at her, trying to process what had just happened. She shouldn’t feel like this. Maybe she was sick too. She had been around Robby a lot since they got off from school. That was it. She must have had the flu.  _ That was it.  _ Fallon was sick. She did not like the kiss that much. Because Fallon was straight. And she didn’t like Kirby — not like that.

* * *

  
  


_ 14 _ _ th _ _ February 2009 _ _   
_ _ 17:00 _ _   
_ __ 5 years, 3 months and 1day pre-breakup

Fallon hated Valentine’s Day. And not just because Robby had broken up with her a few weeks before for ‘being self-centred and intolerable to be around’. It was a pointless holiday. Couples rubbed in the fact they were dating every other day of the year. Why did they need a whole holiday dedicated to it?

She hated it extra this year; Kirby had a date. That was a given. She and Trixie had been dating for seven months now, of course they were going to spend Valentine’s together. But that meant she couldn’t spend the night watched  _ Pride and Prejudice (2005)  _ with Fallon. It was tradition — or it had meant to be. Can something be considered tradition after just one year? Fallon guessed not, but she’d planned on making it one. Like watching  _ She’s the Man _ on the last day of summer vacation and on Kirby’s birthday. But, of course, Kirby had to get a girlfriend and ruin everything.

Kirby was getting ready in Fallon’s room. She did everything in Fallon’s room. Mostly because it was bigger and had better lighting, but Fallon liked to think Kirby just enjoyed being around her. It might have been half-true. And only half-true; Kirby had a girlfriend. A girlfriend who wasn’t Fallon. But Fallon held onto the thought like it was the only thing anchoring her to the ground. 

Kirby sat cross-legged on the floor in front of Fallon’s window, using a beat-up eyeshadow palette as a mirror and pulling a final coat of mascara through her eyelashes. Fallon sat on the bed, watching her. Still in her pyjamas and barefaced. If she hadn’t had promised Kirby to curl her hair, she would have left the room. She wasn’t sure why, but she almost couldn’t stand the sight of the other girl. Kirby had done nothing to Fallon to deserve this, but evening looking at her made Fallon’s face heat up and her heart race. And not in a good way. It was almost as if she was mad at Kirby for no reason. Usually, Fallon didn’t need an excuse to get angry at someone, but she never got angry at Kirby. Never, ever.

“Do I look okay?” Kirby asked, turning around, still on the floor. Fallon scoffed. She looked more than  _ okay _ . She always looked more than okay. Kirby Anders was pretty in ways words couldn’t describe. 

“You look great,” Fallon said, almost wistfully. She cleared her throat. “What are you wearing?”

“Nothing fancy. Jeans, I think.”

Fallon nodded, as though this was the most exciting conversation she’d ever had. “What did you tell your dad?” Kirby hadn’t come out to Anders yet. How did she get permission to go out on Valentine’s Day without raising suspicion? Fallon needed to know. How did someone tell their father they were going out with a girl without coming out to him? Not for personal reasons, obviously. Just in general. That kind of knowledge could come in handy someday. If she were to ever need to give someone advice, of course. Because Fallon Carrington was not gay.

Kirby shrugged. “I just told him that I’m going to get pizza with Trixie. I don’t want to lie to him.”

“But you didn’t tell him she’s your girlfriend?” That seemed like lying to Fallon.

“No. I’m not ready to tell him yet, you know that.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.” She wasn’t sorry, she was furious. Not at Kirby, like she’d thought. Maybe at Trixie. Trixie was easy to be mad at. But definitely at the fact she didn’t have a date. At Robby for dumping her ten days before Valentine’s Day, even if she was a little insufferable. She’d be angry with Robby for as long as she could remember his name.

Kirby left the room to get dressed without responding. Trixie would be there in twenty minutes. Fallon would be alone again in twenty-two.


	4. part four

_ 22 _ _ nd _ _ December 2018 _ _   
_ _ 22:30 _ _   
_ _ 3 years, 7 months and 9 days post-breakup _

The storm was getting worse. The rain was getting louder and the creaking of the ancient trees outside was deafening. Thunder ebbed and flowed, each rumble setting Fallon’s teeth on edge. She hated it. Every single part of it. She turned to face Liam, a downturn in her lips and her brow creased. He stuck out his bottom lip in a sad attempt at sympathy and squeezed her hand.

“Tell me again why we got out of bed,” she said, her free arm wrapped around herself as though it would protect her from the weather outside.

“You want Pop Tarts and you didn’t want to come on your own, or for me to leave you by yourself in the room.”

“Oh. Right.”

Downstairs was quiet, with Blake staying late at work and Sam going to bed early while Steven wasn’t home. Liam flicked on the lights as he walked through the house and into the kitchen, pulling Fallon along behind him.

The front door slammed, and there was a mumble of conversation in the foyer. Fallon whipped her head around to try to catch a glimpse of who it could be. She hoped and prayed that it was Steven- he’d left months ago, and they hadn’t heard from him since September. She wanted him home. Then came the sound of a suitcase rolling across the floor, and the optimism in her chest swelled tenfold. The voices grew closer, and one belonged to a woman; Australian. Fallon swallowed a scowl and moved her attention to Liam again.

Kirby shuffled into the kitchen, a reusable grocery bag in one hand and a travel crate in the other. Great. If it wasn’t bad enough that she was here at all, she’d also brought her blasted cat. Henry wasn’t blasted. Fallon loved him. But that wasn’t allowed anymore.

“Oh,” she said, stopping a metre inside the kitchen door. She looked between Liam, who was standing at the stove mixing a saucepan of hot chocolate, and Fallon, who was sitting atop the centre island as if there weren’t any chairs in the room. “Sorry. Um… I’m just putting Henry’s food in the pantry. Sorry.” Her accent was stronger than it was the last time they’d seen one another - sober, at least. She was still apologising for nothing. Fallon really thought that she’d be over that by now. It was an awful habit to have — almost as bad as grinding her teeth.

“It’s all right. We’re just making hot chocolate, aren’t we, Fallon?” Liam said. He turned down the heat on the stove and moved a few steps towards Kirby, his eyes trained on Fallon. Fallon felt like lunging forward and pulling him away. This couldn’t happen. The less either of them interacted with her, the better. Fallon couldn’t afford Liam finding out about her and Kirby — she didn’t know how to explain that to him. They’d been together for two years; she should have told him by now. At this point it wasn’t keeping secrets, it was lying.

Fallon nodded with a reluctant hum of agreement. She crossed one leg over the other and pulled her dressing gown tighter around herself. She suddenly felt very exposed, like she was on display. “Yup. We sure are.”

Kirby smiled tightly and put Henry’s crate on the ground before disappearing into the pantry for a moment. Fallon slipped down from the island and pushed Liam’s shoulder. She didn’t tell him to shut up — Kirby would hear her — but the gesture should have been enough. 

“That’s Kirby, right?” he whispered in response. He would be the death of her. She nodded. “She’s pretty.”

“I hate to break it to you, but you’re not her type. Sorry.”  _ Not her type _ in the way that she was a lesbian, and he was a man.

Liam opened his mouth to say something but closed it again when Kirby returned from the pantry. He turned to face her. “So, Kirby. What brings you to Buckhead?” 

Fallon didn’t understand why he was talking to Kirby. From what Fallon had told him about the other woman, he should have been staying clear. Fallon hadn’t painted a positive picture of her ex-girlfriend. Why was he so adamant about talking to her? 

Kirby looked at him like a deer in headlights. “The storm killed the power and the heat in my apartment, and my dad said I could stay here for a few days until it’s fixed.”

She wanted to be there as little as Fallon wanted her there. This was too familiar for both of them — it was written all over Kirby’s face and was twisting itself in knots around Fallon’s ribs. The bad kind of familiar that brought everything from their past tumbling into her unwilling arms, and there was nothing she could about it but sort through them as she slotted the memories back into place. 

“That sucks,” Liam said. “I hope it’s fixed soon. You’d rather be at home than here, sure.”

This was Kirby’s home at some point. Her safe space. But it wasn’t anymore. Too much time and distance were between her and the house for it to be anything but a building. The manor was Fallon’s home, and her presence was an intrusion on a place she was no longer welcome.

“Yeah.”

There was a moment of silence that Fallon was sure she was going to drown in. Kirby lifted the crate again and edged towards the door. But, of course, Liam had to stop her. Fallon didn’t know what she did to deserve this.

“Do you want some hot chocolate?” he asked. “I think I made too much.”

“No, thank you. But enjoy. Goodnight, Fallon. Liam, it was nice to meet you.” Kirby’s eyes lingered on Fallon for a moment before she left the kitchen and thudded her way upstairs. A single shiver travelled the length of Fallon’s spine. There was no way Kirby was allowed to say her name like that after so long. To still look at her like that. Fallon didn’t like it. She’d spent the last three and a half years trying to forget that. Kirby couldn’t show up out of the blue and undo that. 

Liam finished up making their hot chocolate and handed a box of Red Velvet Pop Tarts to Fallon. She preferred Chocolate Fudge, but he didn’t know that, and she didn’t mind. She ignored the voice in the back of her head that told her Kirby still knew that. That wasn’t something Fallon had to think about — ever. 

They went upstairs again and Fallon snuck a glance to the end of the hall where Kirby’s bedroom was. It looked the same as always: lightwood door closed tight, though probably locked on the inside instead of out. No one had slept there in years, not since they’d moved out to their own apartment at eighteen, but Anders made sure the maids kept it clean. It was as if he’d known she’d come back.

Fallon had been inside the room four times since she and Kirby had broken up. The first time was to pack up the last of Kirby’s belongings to ship to her new address: Perth. The second to steal the UGA hoodie that she’d purposefully left in the dresser once she’d found it. The third was to return the hoodie and Liam all but moved into the manor. He’d have too many questions. So, she washed it herself — after several YouTube tutorials detailing how to use a washing machine — folded it and placed it back in the bottom drawer of her dresser. Where it belonged. Where it shouldn’t have left in the first place. And a fourth time when she realised she couldn’t sleep without it.

* * *

_ 23 _ _ rd _ _ December 2018 _ _   
_ _ 09:00 _ _   
_ _ 3 years, 7 months and 10 days post-breakup _

Fallon had hoped the night before had been a dream; that Kirby Anders wasn’t in her house. That their encounter in Club Colby’s bathroom was still bugging her, and it was plaguing her dreams. The thought made her skin prickle, her teeth hurt. Because it wasn’t how their reunion was supposed to go. It was meant to be at a family reunion years down the line when Fallon was married, perhaps with children, and as successful as she could possibly be. All of which were yet to happen. Sure, she was insanely happy with Liam and doing well in her job, but she’d had a plan. She was supposed to shove what Kirby had thrown away back in her face. Fallon was far from doing any of that. God, how she hoped it was a nightmare.

Liam was already awake when Fallon woke up, though only barely. She moved closer to him and lay her head on his chest, his heartbeat momentarily quelling the small, but growing, panic in her chest. He rubbed her arm and kissed the top of her hair. They lay there for a moment, and she soaked up every second they had before Liam had to leave for the airport.

“Are we going to talk about what happened last night?” he asked, his voice low. “With Kirby?” It was, in fact, not a dream; Kirby Anders was in her house. 

What was there to talk about? Her ex-girlfriend — who her fiancé thought was just a close friend she’d lost contact with — was staying in their house. It was nothing more than that. Would never be more than that. There was nothing to talk about.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We both know there was tension there last night, and I’d like to know why.”

Fallon dropped Liam’s hand and sat up straight in bed, her every move from last night replaying in her head. What had she done? Surely, she couldn’t have had such an aversive reaction to seeing Kirby that she’d given it all away. They’d hidden their relationship for over nine years now, and no one had ever figured them out. The only people to know were Kirby’s family, and that was because they lived on a separate continent. There was no risk in them accidentally leaking anything to Fallon’s family. Liam, no matter how much she loved him, wasn’t going to come along and find out and ruin everything.

She’d come out to him a while ago. He was one of the handful of people in her life she had, and it was going to stay that way. She didn’t have to go further than that. She didn’t have to tell him she’d had a six-year-long relationship with a woman, or that the breakup affected her so much that she’d had to take more time off work than when her stepmother passed away. He didn’t have to know. Not now. With any luck, not ever.

Fallon pulled the blue box of Pop tarts from the nightstand and took one. She broke it in half, handing the other piece to Liam, before taking a bite from the corner of it. She liked red velvet even less than she remembered, but Liam had tried. She chewed it and turned to look at him, afraid of her answer.

“We didn’t leave our friendship off on great terms. We said things we didn’t mean, and I guess it hurt a little to see her.” Understatement of the century. Things had ended explosively after a whole week of them getting under one another’s skin to the point that they hadn’t spoken in two days before they finally put themselves out of their misery. Before Kirby had put herself out of her own misery and left Fallon to bathe in her own.

“That’s understandable. I get it.” Liam didn’t get it. He didn’t like grudges — thought they were pointless. And, even if he didn’t, he wouldn’t understand. Fallon hadn’t told him very much about Kirby. He wouldn’t know enough about her ex to piece things together. She doubted there were any pieces left to put together. It had been a long, long time. “It’s just… Okay. This is kind of embarrassing, but I stalked your Instagram a little after our first date. She came up a lot! You told me she’s gay, and you’re… you know. If there was something between the two of you, you can tell me. I won’t get mad.”

Fallon wanted to cry. This wasn’t happening. They weren’t talking about this. This wasn’t happening.

“There was nothing between us. Not like that. We were just really, really close friends.” Really close friends like your aunt and her roommate who share a one-bedroom who only show up at Thanksgiving.

And that was the end of that conversation, and Fallon wished it would come up again. She could be so lucky.

By the time they’d gotten out of bed and ready for the day, Mrs Gunnerson was about to serve brunch. Blake and Sam’s odd small talk carried out into the foyer as Fallon and Liam came through.

“Good morn—” Fallon’s words caught in throat and halted when her gaze fell upon Kirby, who was sitting in her old seat at the table — the seat directly across from Fallon’s, scrolling through her phone. She sat next to Sam, who seemed to be trying to include her in the conversation, but she was adamant in ignoring him. It took everything in Fallon not to turn right around and go finish the Pop Tarts for breakfast. She sat down at the table, Liam next to her, and pretended that this was how things always were. That this was the most normal thing in the world; to have her ex-girlfriend, who had moved to Australia four years ago, sitting at her dining room table.

“Morning, Fallon,” Balke said. He too was sending curious looks towards Kirby. Anders mustn’t have told him she was coming. Blake probably would have protested had he known. He’d never really liked Kirby, not after she came out. Because it was fine for Steven (after a while, of course) but not for anyone else. Golden boy was always the exception.

Kirby shifted uncomfortably in her seat and placed her phone in her lap. Her focus was everywhere but forward. It was as though she thought even looking at Fallon would burst her into flames. If she was that uncomfortable, she could have left. Should have left. She was the reason for the atmosphere in the room. She was the common denominator here. 

Fallon smiled at her, small and wicked, when Kirby finally mustered the courage to look at her. Both actions were fleeting, lasting no more than a second. But something shifted, and Kirby’s blatant discomfort fell just short of anger. Fallon almost laughed at her. She had no right to be angry at Fallon being in her own house.

Liam cleared his throat, and Sam followed suit. Blake stared between the two women at the table as though they’d each grown a second head. Last he’d checked, they’d been two best friends tragically separated by the Pacific Ocean. Their newfound, and from his perspective, inexplicable dislike of one another — perhaps even hatred, but Fallon would never take it that far — came from nowhere. He’d probably expected a tearful, joyous reunion with hugs and watery smiles. Not this bitter, silent standoff. But it wasn’t how Fallon had expected this to go, either.

“It’s been quite a while since I’ve last seen you, Kirby. How have you been?” Blake asked, opting to ignore the tension hanging over his head like an angry black cloud.

“I’ve been okay,” Kirby said shortly. She’d begun to shrink into herself; sinking into her chair as if willing it to swallow her whole. “And you?”

Fallon squeezed the bottom of her chair and took a deep breath. The silence was better than this; the lesser of two evils. Why couldn’t they just sit in silence while they waited for their food? That seemed like the most practical option. If this conversation sustained, it could lapse catastrophic. No one had to speak about anything that happened in the last four years. It was unnecessary. Very much so.

“You know how it is,” Blake said. Why was their food taking so long? They should be eating by now. 

Kirby nodded but said nothing more. Thank god. Fallon thought she might have cried if the exchange lasted any longer. All she wanted was to get out of there as soon as possible so she could keep away from Kirby until she left. Which would be soon. If Fallon told herself that enough, it would come true. Manifestation and all that. Kirby would be gone by the day after Christmas. She had to be. Fallon couldn’t handle being around her any longer.

* * *

_ 23 _ _ rd _ _ December 2018 _ _   
_ _ 13:45 _ _   
_ _ 3 years, 7 months and 10 days post-breakup _

Liam had left for the airport, leaving Fallon alone in their bedroom. He was spending Christmas with his family in New York, as always. Normally, Fallon would miss him and be on the phone with him until he had to baord. But he had to call his mother, and Fallon’s mind was elsewhere. Wondering what Kirby was up to while she was in the manor. Probably holing herself up in her room watching reality TV until her brain melted.

Fallon shouldn’t have been thinking about Kirby. She didn’t care about Kirby anymore. Hadn’t in years. This wasn’t fair. What gave her the right to do this, to waltz into Fallon’s life again, expecting no repercussions?

It was a bad idea, but Fallon unlocked her phone and opened the Instagram app, and searched for Kirby’s account.  **@kirbyanders1** . Two hundred and eighty-nine posts. Three thousand, one hundred and fifty-one followers. Four hundred and nine following. Fallon used to make a habit of looking through her ex-girlfriend’s posts; it was part of her bedtime routine. Shower, wash her face, brush her teeth. Check her emails, then her indirects on Twitter, and then look through Kirby’s Instagram as though she hadn’t seen the posts before. Fallon was Kirby’s first follower; she’d seen them all as they came out.

Kirby didn’t delete her photos with Fallon when they’d broken up. Fallon hadn’t deleted hers, either. It was nice to know they were both still a little in denial. Hanging onto it as though their lives were truths.

The last photo of the two of them was from their trip to Savannah ten months before they’d broken up. Two months before Kirby left for Australia. Sitting on the beach, absolutely fuming but smiling like idiots. Best friends. Like they were ever only friends. It hadn’t even been for her birthday. Fallon had posted for Kirby’s two months later, using a similar photo. She couldn’t believe, still, that Kirby had ignored Fallon on her birthday.

Fallon stared at the photo for a moment, at the way they were sitting too close together in their bikini tops and denim shorts. At her old blonde hair and Kirby’s brown. They looked like babies — they were barely twenty-one. Somehow, it simultaneously felt like yesterday and a lifetime ago. 

She scrolled up again until she was at the top of Kirby’s profile. Her most recent was of her and the girlfriend. The girlfriend was pretty; really pretty. Pretty in a way Fallon wasn’t. And, she was tagged. She had long, dark hair, and a perfectly proportioned face and a ton of piercings. Her eyes were dark like the starless night sky. Little ornate tattoos covered her fingers and crept up her toned arms. 

Curiosity got the better of Fallon, and she clicked on  **@lilah_kahn** ’s profile. She was set to private. All Fallon had to go off was her tiny circular profile picture in the top left corner. It was a selfie. She was smiling. Her teeth were a bit crooked. Fallon could see what Kirby liked about her. There was also her bio:  _ 28\. Aquarius. She/her.  _ She was older than Kirby, too. Interesting. Her link was to her LinkedIn profile. She was such an adult it was frustrating.

Fallon locked her phone again and pretended she hadn’t looked in the first place. She shouldn’t have looked in the first place.    
  



	5. part five

_ 24 _ _ th _ _ December 2018 _ _   
_ _ 10:00 _ _   
_ _ 3 years, 7 months and 11 days post-breakup _

Kirby didn’t like being home alone, especially not there. Not in the manor. The still silence that lay over the manor sent unpleasant shocks of dread through her. She never used to be like this, but so long away from the place was less a warm hug than an icy, nostalgic hand wrapped around her throat. 

She sat in her old seat at the dining room table, hyper-aware of what sitting there the day beforehand caused. She hadn’t meant to offend Fallon—if that was what happened—it was just a force of habit. Kirby should have moved seats when Fallon had entered the room, but perhaps that could have made things significantly worse. It would have caused a scene. And they had needed no more attention on them than what they were already receiving from Blake.

Kirby let her eyes drift from her Instagram feed to the empty chairs around her, her heartbeat picking up for a moment. Everyone else had gone out for the day; had gone to work or to do something more productive than sitting in the house they spent the latter years of their childhood, moping and eating bland oatmeal. She should have expected this. The Carringtons were too busy  _ existing _ to have time to sit around the house for any period of time. They had business deals to close and lives to ruin. Having a day at home would take too much time away from their jam-packed schedules of meetings with others with ridiculous wealth and their weekly overly extravagant soirees. It had been this way when Kirby first moved in almost twelve years before, had been prior to that, and it would be that way until the end of time. It was the way the Carringtons worked.

Kirby’s phone let out an obnoxious  _ ping!,  _ drawing her out of the staring contest she’d accidentally began with the painting hanging on the wall opposite her. She turned off her ringer and checked the notification.

**_lilah 🥰:_ ** _ heating is still down and power is iffy iain says it can’t be fixed till after christmas _

Perfect. This was just what Kirby needed. She’d been counting down the hours until she could go home; to get as far away as possible from this damn house as fast as humanly possible. Was that too much to ask for? To be able to go home, and not have to stay in her ex-girlfriend’s house while she waited to? Kirby pushed her bowl away from her and huffed out a breath. Of course, this would happen to her. Everything had gone wrong since she’d moved back from Australia, and she was beginning to believe that she shouldn’t have left in the first place.

She left the dining room and went into the kitchen to clean her bowl before going back upstairs to her bedroom. Downstairs was too vast and quiet to sit down there on her own. She worried the place would swallow her whole.

Her room sat spotlessly, almost completely unchanged from when she’d moved out at eighteen. The walls were sunflower yellow and plastered with posters of Paramore and calendars that were eight years out of date. Her stuffed animals sat in a neat row at the end of her bed, her high school notebooks stacked on the desk covered with splotches of spilt nail polish. Photos of her and Fallon were still taped to the mirror above her dresser, where she’d left them. She figured she didn’t need them when she had Fallon with her anyways.

Kirby sat on her bed, considering going back to her apartment despite its lack of basic necessities. She needed to go home. Living with no electricity for a few days was better than being haunted by the ghosts of her past. Her things were still in her bags, forever hyper-aware of the threat of Fallon kicking her out with only a moment’s notice. Kirby was surprised it hadn’t happened yet.

Her phone startled her, her ringtone filling the small room. Private Number.

“Hello?” Normally, she didn’t answer these. She should, considering her job, but answering phone calls was perhaps her least favourite activity.

“Hi! Is this Kirby Anders?” The voice on the other end of the line was chirpy despite the aggressive typing, and phones ringing, and people chattering around them. She was sure she shouldn’t have hung up.

“Yes. Can I help you?”

“This is Allison Heaney from Carrington Atlantic PR department. This is very last-minute, and I apologise for that, but you be available to photograph a project starting Thursday, December twenty-seventh?”

Carrington Atlantic. As in the Carringtons she was currently living with. There was no way she could take the job. Last she’d known, Fallon was working in acquisitions, but going to her place of work felt like more than an overstep. The likelihood was that she wouldn’t even see her ex-girlfriend, never mind work with her. But Kirby needed the money. Badly. She knew that Carrington Atlantic paid well, and she didn’t have the same consistent client-base that she did back in Australia. Jobs were drying up, and she bills to pay.

“Hello?” Allison said after a few moments. Kirby almost hung up and turned off her phone. She didn’t. But almost.

“Yeah, hi. Er… yes, I’ll be available. Can I ask what the project entails?”

“It’s for our new clean energy project. You’ll have to come in Thursday for briefings and then Friday will be on location at the wind farm. I can forward the details to your email?”

“Great. Yeah. Thanks.”

Kirby could have cried when the call ended. From relief or trepidation, she wasn’t sure.

She dropped her phone onto the bed next to her and looked around her bedroom again. It reminded her too much of before. Fallon had helped choose the colour of the paint and the bedding and the cheap Ikea furniture. There wasn’t much in the room that she hadn’t had a say in. Kirby had to get away from it. She could not wait to get out of there. She couldn’t bear another day in the manor.

* * *

_ 25 _ _ th _ _ December 2018 _ _   
_ _ 14:30 _ _   
_ _ 3 years, 7 months and 12 days post-breakup _

Kirby wanted to scream when her father walked into her room, proceeding a sharp rap on the door and no invitation inside. She had already avoided breakfast by faking a migraine. She wasn’t going to get out of the rest of Christmas, and she had a feeling that’s exactly why he was in her room. She wasn’t going to leave the room. She didn’t want to see the Carringtons. She’d spent her Christmas Eve binge-watching  _ Married at First Sight,  _ and she was able to call Lilah the night before. They complained that their Christmas plans of eating leftover Chinese food and playing Monopoly were foiled and fell asleep on call. It was supposed to be cute until Kirby remembered that she did this with Fallon the first few weeks she was in Australia when she woke up, and the moment was ruined. Fallon ruined everything.

She was curled up in bed, her show of choice now  _ Gilmore Girls _ . Her father looked stern as ever. He sighed at her unkempt appearance–her pyjamas and old college hoodie that didn’t fit her right anymore. He wouldn’t be able to force her upstairs when she looked like this. Blake may have a heart attack.

“Get dressed. Lunch will be ready in twenty minutes,” he said, scowling at the untidiness of her room. It hadn’t taken her long to make her room look like it had when she was a teenager.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You will get ready and you will go upstairs and each lunch with your family. You can sit somewhere else, I don’t care. You are eating now.” And that was final.

“They aren’t my family.”

He ignored her.

She slipped out of bed, shivering from the frigid temperature of her room. It had never been well heated – which was why she had always stayed in Fallon’s room when they had their secret sleepovers that only ever happened on the very rare occasion they were home alone. She shook her head as though that would physically rid herself of the memories. It almost worked. She opened her wardrobe, hoping something appropriate for Christmas with the Carringtons had appeared there overnight. She’d mostly packed hoodies and leggings, but a pair of jeans she’d forgotten she’d brought and a blouse from when she was eighteen hung in the very back. It wouldn’t fit, she knew that just by looking at it, and it was as two thousand and eleven as you could get. Despite herself, she contemplated it before putting it back and grabbing her least faded sweatshirt. It wouldn’t match Fallon’s cocktail dress or Blake’s suit, but it was better than her  _ Care Bears  _ pyjamas.

Kirby put on her largest, fakest smile as she entered the dining room. Fallon acted as though Kirby’s presence in her house wasn’t affecting her (read: pissing her off beyond comprehension), so Kirby would do the same. She’d act as though being back in Carrington Manor was the single greatest thing to ever happen to her. Everyone else seemed bored at best. Kirby’s place setting was as far away from Fallon as possible, which was one seat away from being in her usual seat directly facing her ex-girlfriend, where Sam was sitting. Her father sat next to Fallon – today was the one and only day of the year that he dined with everyone else. It was hard to separate Fallon and Kirby when there were only five people at the table.

“Good afternoon, Kirby.” Blake was first to speak; to acknowledge her. “Good to see your migraine is better.”

Kirby wasn’t sure how to respond, still unfamiliar with Blake realising she was even there, so she nodded and stared at the off-white tablecloth as though it was the most interesting thing that she’d ever laid eyes on.

This was the saddest Carrington Christmas Kirby had ever witnessed, and she’d been there the first year both Steven and Alexis were gone, and it was just her, her father, Blake and Fallon for dinner. At least, then, they’d been used to it. Alexis had upped and left eighteen months before, and Steven hadn’t returned home since he started college the September previous. They’d been a household of three for long enough to be comfortable with it. But this was pitiful. No one was talking, and the ham was so incredibly small, and the place felt as cold and emotionless as it did every other day of the year. An anomaly—something about Christmas usually livened the place up. Not this year.

“How is your family?” Blake’s attention, inexplicably, was back on Kirby. Sam was smothering his dinner in gravy and Fallon was drinking her wine like it was water. “I’m sure you’d rather be with them than here.”

He didn’t know the half of it.

“Well, Dad’s here. I haven’t spent Christmas with him since I moved, so this is nice. Yeah, they’re good. Thanks for asking.”

She wished he never asked. She missed them like hell, sure, but she hadn’t spent Christmas with them since she moved, either. She’d spent the last three years on her own in her grotty one-bedroom back in Perth with a microwave dinner and a marathon of Hallmark movies. This was only marginally better than that.

After what must have been ten whole minutes of dead silence, apart from cutlery on plates and Sam’s overzealous chewing, Fallon cleared her throat. She’d eaten half of her meal and had now resorted to carving intricate patterns in the cloth napkin with her butter knife.

“Can I be excused?” she asked Blake as though she was still sixteen and needed permission to leave the table. He nodded and she threw the napkin atop her picked-at dinner before standing, scraping her chair on the expensive floors in the process, and left the room. Still, no one said a word.

* * *

_ 25 _ _ th _ _ December 2018 _ _   
_ _ 17:30 _ _   
_ __ 9 years, 7 months and 12 days post-breakup

Kirby managed to escape the dining room a few hours later, and went to one of the three sitting rooms downstairs for refuge, more than glad to have gotten away from Blake’s scotch-infused ramblings. She wasn’t convinced he’d said anything coherent in the past hour-and-a-half. But he kept talking, trying to teach her how to open a checking account (this, she was aware of how to do), and how to build a multi-billion-dollar empire (that, she wasn’t as read-up on).

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimly lit room, the only light source the television playing an old movie. She only recognised it as  _ Sunset Boulevard _ by Fallon’s ability to recite it word-perfect. She lay curled up on one of the overstuffed couches under a fleecy blanket. So, this is where she’d disappeared to.

It surprised Kirby that Fallon still watched it. It was a tradition Fallon had had even before Kirby started spending Christmases with her, but it had turned into something they would do together every Christmas evening. They would eat Christmas pudding and drink champagne – even though Kirby never cared for either. Kirby would poke fun at the Transatlantic accents and Fallon would chastise her for supposed blasphemy. Kirby’s heart tugged the tiniest bit at the memory.

“I thought you’d be sick of this by now,” she said, startling Fallon. Kirby smiled, still standing in the doorway. She should have left as quickly as she came the moment she’d spotted the other woman, but whatever drink it was that Blake kept refilling for her was clouding her judgement. She was acting as though the two of them were friends, as though they could stand to look at one another without having the overwhelming urge to run away.

“How could I be sick of it? It’s a classic, and it’s a tradition,” Fallon said, her gaze only leaving the television for a second to survey the other woman. How she loved traditions. She didn’t wear her usual scowl or glare, but a tired ghost of a smile and a gentle flush. She patted the couch next to her; an invitation for Kirby to sit down and join her.

Kirby raised an eyebrow at the gesture. While, yes, it had been a tradition for them to watch the film together for seven years, they hadn’t done so in four. It had been a while, and things weren’t the same anymore. Exes didn’t have traditions.

“Don’t leave me hanging.”

Kirby sat on the opposite side of the couch to Fallon, discarding her drink on a side table on the way there. The film was more than halfway over, but she had almost committed it to memory. It didn’t take long for her to figure out where they were. They’d passed her favourite part, but they were coming up on Fallon’s.

“Why do you like this so much?” Kirby asked once it was over. She’d known Fallon since she was four years old, and she’d never thought of asking before. It’s just what happened.

They had been sitting in an almost comfortable silence for a while. Not exactly enjoying each other’s company, but not disliking it either. It felt familiar. Not good, nor bad. They’d just been there before.

“It’s my mom’s favourite.”

Kirby had wanted to ask about Alexis since she set foot in the house again. She’d heard she’d come back into the picture nearly a year ago, but it was evident she hadn’t stayed long. Kirby hadn’t seen her once. Alexis was known to go on spa trips she’d never return from. Kirby knew better than to ask.

They dove right back into their silence. Where they’d been wading in before Kirby had opened her mouth. This time, less comfortable than the last but hadn’t teetered to the side of unpleasant. Still too familiar. And, the more she sat in it, the less she found comfort in the familiarity. The longer she soaked in it, the closer it resembled Jamais Vu. She kept quiet, worried if she tried to speak again a sob would come in replacement of words.

Fallon picked up her drink from the table next to her, took a sip and settled further into the couch. Kirby hadn’t noticed the glass until then, but was unsurprised to see it. Fallon’s “no drinking” mustn’t have lasted a month after they’d broken up. Not that it was Kirby’s fault, but because Fallon didn’t have an impulse control any longer.

“You used to be fun,” Fallon said. Her words were on the verge of slurring and a dazed grin was taking grip on the corners of her lips. She was around four drinks deep. Four-drink-Fallon was dopey Fallon. “Why aren’t you fun anymore?”

Kirby choked on nothing. That had come out of nowhere. But Fallon wasn’t exactly gifted in the art of subtlety, or segue. “I’ll have you know that I’m very fun, thank you.” She wasn’t, but Fallon didn’t have to know that.

Fallon had the audacity to laugh, laugh as though Kirby had told her a joke. “Sure thing.”

Kirby stared at her, borderline gobsmacked, and shook her head. Fallon was more than comfortable in the familiarity, it seemed. “I bet your life is just as boring as mine is. We’re getting old, Fal.” The use of her ex-girlfriend’s nickname had been unintentional, made both of them clam up for a moment. Kirby and Steven were the only people to ever use it, and neither had been around enough to keep it in fashion. The statement was also untrue. Fallon Carrington led a life that was worthy of television.

“First of all, I’m twenty-five, not eighty. Second, my life has  _ never  _ been boring.” Fallon held up fingers as she listed before she paused to take another gulp of her drink and scooted a few inches closer to the other woman. It looked like a Southside but Kirby could never tell. “Do you remember when we went to New York on our own for the first time? That was fun –  _ you _ were fun.”

“We got lost and spent nearly two hours trying to get out of Central Park because your phone died. I wouldn’t call that fun.”

“ _ See _ ? You’re not fun anymore!” Four-drink-Fallon was turning into five-drink-Fallon. Loud and a little emotional.

Kirby rolled her eyes and turned to look at Fallon again, jumping a little at how close they were. In the space of only a few moments, Fallon had moved across the couch and was now sitting nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with Kirby. She could feel the heat radiating off of Fallon’s body. It was familiar; this time comfortable. Kirby felt as though she was seventeen again, and everything was okay. That she and Fallon were more than happy in their super-secret relationship and felt like nobody could ever take it away from them.

Fallon rested her head on her ex-girlfriend’s shoulder, clearly feeling similar. Kirby tilted her head to lean her cheek atop Fallon’s hair. Just like old times. Neither of them, it seemed, wanted to move.

Kirby’s brain fogged to blissful ignorance. Fallon had always been her most powerful aphrodisiac, but Kirby didn’t think the other woman would still have such a strong hold on her after so long. Fallon shouldn’t have such a strong hold on Kirby after so long.

They melted into one another, basking in each other’s company like it was more precious than either of them could ever imagine. It felt wrong, but it was hard to determine where Fallon ended and Kirby began. It was oddly intimate without Kirby feeling anything romantic. Because she wasn’t in love with Fallon, not anymore. Hadn’t been in love with Fallon in years – months, perhaps, if she was being cynical. And, if anything, this felt more like a reunion of old friends than exes. Kirby felt safe, not loved. Fallon felt like home, and Kirby hadn’t been home in years.

Fallon lifted her head, eyes raising to meet with Kirby’s. They locked for a moment, their breathing slow and synchronised. Fallon’s gaze flicked between Kirby’s eyes and the door. Then from the door to her eyes to her lips. Kirby knew this was a terrible idea and would have catastrophic consequences, but Fallon had more of a pull on her than gravity. They inched ever closer together. Centimetres separated their faces. Eyes closed, chins tilted towards one another.

“What are we doing?” Kirby asked, making a sudden movement backwards and almost falling from the couch. She stood, her hands shaking.  _ What were they doing? _

“I don’t know,” Fallon said, setting her empty glass next to her and placing her hands on either side of her face. “I–” 

“God,” said Kirby.

“Lilah,” said Fallon. Kirby didn’t ask how Fallon knew about Lilah. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t need to know.

Kirby left the room, her heart rate escalating to well above what was healthy. Fallon called an apology after her, but she barely heard it. Her ears were ringing too loud. Her eyes grew hot and she was blinking away tears of frustration before she even reached the base of the stairs. She didn’t even know why this was. Nothing had happened, and both of them knew to stop. It had been accidental; they’d zoned out. Kirby hadn’t almost kissed Fallon. She hadn’t. It was a slipup. Simple as that.

She threw open her bedroom door and flew through it before slamming it shut again and leaning her weight on it. Breathed in for seven and out for five. She needed a smoke.

Footsteps down the hallway. A knock on the door.

“Kirby, are you all right?” Fallon asked from the other side of the door. Kirby could hear the frown in her voice. She didn’t open the door. Another knock. Softer this time.

“Yes, I’m fine. I think I’m just going to go to bed.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Goodnight, Fallon.”


	6. part six

_ 1 _ _ st _ _ January 2009 _ _   
_ _ 10:30 _ _   
_ _ 6 years, 4 months and 12 days pre-breakup _

Fallon didn’t remember. Kirby thought that might have been a blessing. Fallon had kind of wigged out the night before. Kirby had kind of wigged out the night before. She wasn’t sure she’d processed what had happened. Fallon and Kirby had kissed. Platonically. Though, it had been a terrible idea. Kirby had known that the second she’d agreed to it. She should have said no; hadn’t agreed at first for that reason. She should have refused. Fallon shouldn’t have asked in the first place. She should have known it was a bad idea.

They were friends, and nothing more. Simple as that. Sure, they might have been closer than any friends Kirby had ever known, but they lived together. They saw each other every waking second of every day. They were practically part of each other. And that was it. They were friends. And would never be anything more. Kirby had a girlfriend, and Fallon had a boyfriend. They were friends.

Despite it all, Kirby almost wished that Fallon remembered. In a morbid, twisted, awful way. It would complicate things. Ruin things. But in the most deliciously complicated way. It would be bad. So, so bad. But why did Kirby want it? Yearn for it? Need it?

“Are you okay?” Fallon asked, her brow furrowed, and her head tilted. They were eating a breakfast of buttered English muffins and strong coffee and fun-sized candy bars leftover from Christmas. They hadn’t stayed out late, but they were fifteen; lightweights. Irresponsible at best. Plain stupid at worst. “You’re not even listening to me.” Kirby was listening. Fallon was talking about Robby. About her boyfriend. She wished she wasn’t listening. Robby was gross.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just tired, s’all.” At least she was telling the truth. Partly. Almost. She was tired. Borderline exhausted. But she wasn’t sure she was okay. How could she be okay when she kissed her best friend while she had a girlfriend? That wasn’t okay. Not even a little bit. “I’m great.” And the lies began. They were pretty convincing, too.

“Are you sure? You’re acting weird.”

“Gee, thanks. I appreciate it, really.”

Fallon rolled her eyes and scoffed before taking a long drink of her coffee. “Fine. I believe you.”

It wasn’t as though Kirby hadn’t thought about it before. Fallon was admittedly attractive; pretty in a way that stole the breath from Kirby’s lungs. Box-blonde hair curled over well-postured shoulders. Eyes that crinkled when she laughed or brightened when she was excited. Hands that fidgeted with everything; twisted her earrings and patted down her skirt and curled her hair around her fingers. She had such beautiful hands. And Fallon knew this; was aware of the effect she had on people. The cottonmouth, clammy hands, shortness of breath that came along with being in her presence.

“Do you really not remember what happened last night?” Kirby asked, sure this was a mistake. But she needed to make sure that she was the sole person to have that information. It was imperative she was.

Fallon went scarlet and dropped her muffin on her plate again. Mostly for dramatic effect. “Are you making fun of me?” A deflection. She didn’t remember anything. Perfect.

Kirby shook her head. “Of course not. I was just asking... You didn’t miss much, anyway. The party was boring, and we left right after midnight.”

Fallon shrugged and finished her breakfast, continuing her rant about Robby and how him getting sick the night before was a personal slight against her. Kirby nodded along, only half paying attention. She did not care about Fallon’s inattentive boyfriend. Not even a little bit.

* * *

_ 14 _ _ th _ _ February 2009 _ _   
_ _ 21:45 _ _   
_ _ 6 years, 2 months and 29 days pre-breakup _

“Fallon, babes? Are you in here?” Kirby knocked on Fallon’s bedroom door for the third time. It was locked. The other girl had to be in her bedroom; she was nowhere else in the house. But she wasn’t answering. It wasn’t late enough for Fallon to be asleep. At least Kirby didn’t think so. Any other year, they’d be watching some cheesy rom-com they’d already seen a million times, talking through it and talking wistfully about how their lives would reflect it when they were older. “Fallon?”

The lock in the door clicked, but the door remained shut. Fallon didn’t say anything. Kirby didn’t say anything. She couldn’t tell if that was an invitation inside or not. But she pushed her luck and opened the door, peering her head inside. Fallon climbed into bed, looking half-asleep. Her hair was twisted into two plaits and she wore a grey oversized NYU sweatshirt that she’d stolen from Steven the last time they’d seen one another, and a pair of lavender cotton shorts. She didn’t look at Kirby. Or acknowledge her at all. Maybe it hadn’t been an invitation to come in. Perhaps Kirby should have left. But she didn’t. Something told her to stay.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, still in the doorway. Still testing the waters.

Fallon whipped her head around and frowned, clearly not okay. She probably wouldn’t admit to that, though. Fallon was always okay. No matter the circumstances. Of course, she wouldn’t be okay. Her boyfriend broke up with her three days after her birthday and two weeks before Valentine’s; it was the first Valentine’s Day without her mother there to console her singleness. Something had to be wrong, but Fallon Carrington would never accept that. Ever.

“Come here,” she said. Not an answer to the question. She couldn’t bring herself to lie. She never lied to Kirby. Kirby did as she was told, crossing the bedroom and sitting on the edge of the left side of the bed. Her side of the bed.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, but she already knew the answer. Fallon wouldn’t talk about it. Would keep it bottled up until she exploded, could keep it in no longer. It would be disastrous, of severe consequence. But it was inevitable, and Kirby would be there to pick up the pieces. She always was.

Fallon shook her head and lay down, facing away from the other girl. A cry for attention, for Kirby to pry. Ask too many questions that would end in tears and three days of them not talking. Fallon was so predictable it was laughable. No matter how hard she denied it.

“No. But you could hold me.” It seemed like a suggestion, but it was a plea. And Kirby had never said no to Fallon—was incapable of saying no to Fallon.

Kirby crawled to the other side of the bed and lay behind Fallon, waiting a moment before wrapping her arms around the other girl, her chin resting on her shoulder. It wasn’t the first time it had happened, not even close, but it had never felt this intimate before. It felt more intimate than it should have. There was nothing intimate about their relationship—friendship. Because that’s all it was. A friendship. And that was all it would ever be. All it could ever be.

“Better?” Kirby asked. She didn’t need an answer. It was evident. Fallon’s body had relaxed—melted, really—into Kirby the second their bodies touched. Things were better already. For both parties. Fallon’s touch—but just her presence, too—instantly relaxed Kirby, too. They had that effect on each other. Kirby kissed Fallon’s hair and clutched her tighter.

“Better.”

* * *

_ 14 _ _ th _ _ March 2009 _ _   
_ _ 03:30 _ _   
_ __ 6 years, 1 month and 29 days pre-breakup

_ She’s the Man _ had ended hours ago. They’d run out of popcorn hours ago. Kirby should have left hours ago. But she hadn’t. She was still in Fallon’s room, in her bed. Where she always was. Fallon’s bedroom was her safe space. She liked the way the light came through the large panelled windows and how it was always exactly the right temperature. And how Fallon was always there.

They should have gone to sleep hours ago. They’d promised to stay up until midnight, when it was officially Kirby’s birthday, but then they’d immediately go to sleep. They had a busy day ahead of them with the birthday breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes, and their friends were coming over to marathon bad horror movies that Kirby was obsessed with, and another sleepover—this one actually permitted by Kirby’s father—in Fallon’s bedroom. Staying up to half after three was perhaps the worst idea either of them had ever had.

Fallon lay on the right side of the bed, and Kirby lay on the left. The same as always. Facing each other, whispering instead of talking. No one would ever hear them, but that was never the point. The intimacy of whispering so close together, so late into the night, when no one else was awake, was intoxicating. They were sleepy and more than delirious, but this was perfect. The best way to start Kirby’s birthday.

“Break up with Trixie,” Fallon whispered, the words slurred together. Perhaps she was more sleep-deprived than Kirby had thought. Because the request was more than ridiculous. Why on earth would Kirby break up with Trixie? They were happy in their relationship – so happy. And Kirby was pretty sure she was close to loving Trixie, romantically speaking. She could not think of one reason as to why she would break up with her. It would ruin everything; their friendship, the dynamic of their whole friendship group. Sure, there were only three of the six of them who knew about their relationship, but the tension would be there, and obvious. It wasn’t something that would just disappear. Breaking up with Trixie came with consequences that Kirby wasn’t sure she was ready to face. And Fallon knew about those consequences. Robby breaking up with her had ruined everything for well over a month, and their group of seven dwindled to a group of six.

Kirby laughed, the giggle that only appeared when she was past tired. “What are you talking about, babes? Why would I break up with her?” She was getting nervous now, some sort of anxiety filling her from top to toe.

Their faces were inches apart. Even in the dark, Kirby could see Fallon’s roots growing out and the spot on her chin that she piled concealer on to hide during the day. Things Fallon only ever showed Kirby. Still, she looked ethereal. She always did. Kirby wasn’t sure that Fallon was capable of looking anything short of ethereal.

Fallon shrugged, a visible shiver running down her spine. Jittery nervousness radiated from her fingers. “I don’t think she’s right for you.” She pulled her blanket over her shoulders, her eyes staring into Kirby’s like she was afraid that breaking eye contact would cause her physical pain. The feeling was so nearly mutual.

Kirby shifted back a few centimetres, her face scrunched up in confusion. Her palm found the bottom of her face and pulled downwards towards her neck. She pressed her lips into a fine, white line. She couldn’t process this. It physically wouldn’t happen. Then she sat up and tightened her ponytail, too tired to figure out what was going on. It was too late for this. Why was Fallon doing this now? Three-thirty AM was not the time to sabotage someone else’s relationship.

“I don’t think she could make you as happy as you deserve to be,” Fallon said, sitting up and pushing herself forward an inch, minimising the already small space between them. She pushed her hair behind her shoulders, blinking slowly. “You deserve all the happiness in the world, babes.”

Fallon never called Kirby babes. Never called anyone babes. Kirby called everyone babes. The word rang foreign in her ears. She didn’t dislike it, though.

“And who do you think  _ could _ make me happy? Who  _ is _ right for me?”

Kirby didn’t want the answer; didn’t think she could handle the answer. She’d been telling herself that Fallon was straighter than a ruler for the past year. Convincing herself that what had happened on New Year’s and Valentine’s Day had nothing to do with her. That it was everything to do with Robby Reid and his awful, stupid decisions. That Fallon wigged out because she’d technically cheated on her boyfriend and she was upset because she was spending Valentine’s alone. Not because of  _ Kirby.  _ This wasn’t supposed to be Kirby’s fault.

Fallon turned her face to the right, ever so slightly, bringing her lips to Kirby’s ear. “Break up with her, please.” Kirby shivered, a long vibration coursing down her body. She was going to cry.

“Give me a reason to. A real one.”

Fallon swallowed and looked down, the smallest of smiles pulling at the corners of her lips. The same smile she’d given every boy she’d ever had a crush on. God. “For me.”

She pulled back, only inches separating their faces. A knot in Kirby’s stomach kept her in place, waiting for Fallon to do something. To make the first move. Though she hoped Fallon wouldn’t. It took a few long seconds, but she did.

Fallon’s lips were softer than anyone Kirby had ever kissed. She tasted of red starburst lipsmackers and everything good in the world. She rose to her knees, pulling the other girl with her. Hands tangled in hair. Fingers brushed clothed rib cages.

They pulled apart a few moments later, breathless and flushed. It shouldn’t have happened. Kirby had a girlfriend. This was a bad idea. Kirby’s father was right. Fallon Carrington was a bad influence. 


	7. part seven

_ 25 _ _ th _ _ December _ _   
_ _ 19:00 _ _   
_ _ 9 years, 7 months and 12 days post-breakup _

Fallon didn’t believe Kirby. Not that that was a new sensation. But Kirby was not okay. Not even close. And it was blatant. Fallon almost knocked again, waited for the other woman to open the door so she could apologise properly. She hadn’t meant to… whatever she had done. It hadn’t been her intention to hurt Kirby’s feelings. And honestly, she felt kind of gross realising that she had. Watching the end of the movie together was supposed to have been an innocent return to tradition, not a rehash of old feelings.

She shook her head before retreating downstairs again. She slipped back into the dining room, ignoring Anders and her father and Sam — she wasn’t even close to being in the mood to deal with them — and poured herself another Southside. It took three mouthfuls for her to empty the glass. So another. And that was a quarter gone by the time she got to the door leading to the back garden and into the frozen air. It sobered her up a bit, and she crossed both her arms and legs in a pitiful attempt to conserve body heat. Being this cold was what she got for wearing such a small dress outside in December.

Fallon shouldn’t have felt as bad as she did, and she knew that. Whatever had just happened had been mutual, no matter how wrong it was. She didn’t like Kirby like that anymore — barely liked Kirby at all anymore — and she was firm in that. Kirby had hurt Fallon too badly to still harbour a ten-year-old crush. How was she supposed to still love Kirby when she left her for Australia with two days’ notice, only to refuse to speak to her for seven months? Made her travel eleven thousand smiled just to break up with her?

The initial buzz of alcohol was wearing off, and nausea gnawed at the pit of her stomach. The next morning would be hell, she could feel it coming already. She crossed the veranda and sat in one of the outdoor chairs, stretching her legs out in front of her. Another sip. 

She hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. Fallon was supposed to be happily enjoying Christmas with her father, brother and brother-in-law. And Kirby was supposed to be back in Perth, eating dry turkey in her shitty apartment with her stepfather and half-sister. They were supposed to be on opposite sides of the planet, not in each other’s lap.

“You’ll catch your death out here.” Speak of the devil and she shall appear.

Fallon turned around in her chair to find Kirby wrapped in a fluffy yellow dressing gown, a cigarette dangling from between two fingers. That was a throwback. She’d quit when they were still in college. That hadn’t lasted long. Nothing lasted long with Kirby. She stood a few metres away, just outside the door, but Fallon could still see evidence of her crying; mascara smeared up her temples and patches of discolouration under her eyes. 

Fallon drained her glass. “That’s bad for you, you know,” she said, nodding to the cigarette that was now lit and between Kirby’s teeth. Pot, meet kettle.

Kirby rolled her eyes and exhaled a flurry of smoke. “Thank you for the health class. I wasn’t aware.” That was rude, even for Kirby. And the bar was on the ground.

Fallon pursed her lips and turned in her seat again. She shouldn’t have opened her mouth.

The sky was inky and starless. Light pollution at its finest. She stared up at it, waiting for Kirby to go back inside. She’d prefer to spiral in silence alone. Two was a crowd.

“You should really come back inside. It’s getting cold,” Kirby said, looking around at the expanse of land before her like she was disappointed in it. Like it had offended her.

“I’m fine, thanks. Goodnight.”

“Yeah, ‘night.”

With that, Kirby walked back into the house, Fallon’s eyes following her. She still walked the same, but something so fundamental was unlikely to change in only a few years. She hadn’t changed much, actually. She was still mopey and too in her own head and like a breath of fresh air, anyway. Fallon was a fool to think she’d ever change.

Kirby, although without her knowledge, did nothing but pull Fallon back to when they were twenty, eating takeaway in their unnecessarily tiny apartment and trying to finish essays before _ Gossip Girl _ started, even though both of them had completely lost interest by the last season. When they would stay up until three in the morning playing  _ Mario Kart _ and yelling at each other until their downstairs neighbour would hit the ceiling with a broom. When they were pretending to be living in two separate bedrooms. All Kirby did was remind Fallon of the few good parts of the last eighteen months of their relationship — the last eighteen months of their  _ functioning _ relationship. It was suffocating.

Fallon knew, deep down, their relationship had been beyond unhealthy towards the end. They would fight over everything: how to stack the dishwasher and how they were spending their money and who they were spending their time with. Yet, a tiny, little part of her missed it. She didn’t miss Kirby or their relationship. Fallon missed what they had. She missed her best friend.

She hated that she felt like this. She shouldn’t feel like this. They broke up a long time ago, and for good reason. And, she was in love with Liam. So, so in love with him. They were engaged. To be married in a matter of months. They were much healthier than she and Kirby were; better suited. Liam was who Fallon was meant to be with. They made more sense than she and Kirby could ever hope to. 

Fallon stood up from her chair, leaving her empty glass on the table, and walked back into the house. Her fingers stung from the sudden change in temperature. She ignored the Christmas music and her father’s forced laughs coming from the lounge and went upstairs to her bedroom. It was early, but she was exhausted.

* * *

_ 27 _ _ th _ _ December 2018 _ _   
_ _ 08:45 _ _   
_ _ 3 years, 7 months and 14 days post-breakup _

Fallon loved her job, but she hated the first day of a new project. They had a talent for irritating her. She’d only been part of the PR department for six months, and had only headed nine projects, but she hated every single moment of the first twenty-four hours. She hated the introductions to the photographer and people from other departments that she’d never see again. And the small talk. The disgusting on-location coffee. Sometimes she missed acquisitions. There, all she had to do was buy smaller companies out from under themselves, not determine how the public perceived the company. Acquisitions was a lot less pressure.

A steady trickle of people she didn’t recognise had been milling past for the last fifteen minutes. Allison was running around like a headless chicken, yelling through her phone and pointing strangers towards the boardroom and emailing Fallon every ten seconds. Fallon hadn’t opened one of them. The subjects alone told her not to.  _ Funding issues. Photographer running late. Scheduling conflicts.  _ It was too early to deal with, especially on her first day back after Christmas. Fallon made a mental note to tell Allison never to organise a project first day after break again.

The boardroom was full when Fallon finally appeared. Apparently, the photographer wouldn’t get there in time for the meeting, so they’d have to come to see her in her office when they decided to show up. She sat down at the end of the table and introduced herself before letting the project manager take over. Fallon zoned out, letting him drone on about deadlines and itineraries and budget.

The meeting seemed to last for hours. Mostly because it did. And Fallon didn’t retain any of it. She wasn’t sure she needed to — she wouldn’t be at the actual shoot and only needed to approve the finished product. She barely knew why she was in the room at all. She wished she wasn’t in the room at all.

Fallon had seven texts and three missed calls from Liam once she got back to her office. She’d left her phone in her desk drawer, and he was the most impatient person he’d ever met. Even more impatient than Kirby. 

“Is everything okay?” she asked when he answered after three rings. She logged into her computer again and found another fourteen emails. Again, all from Allison. God, Fallon wanted to go home.

“Yeah. It’s lunchtime,” he said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. Yes, they called every day during her lunch break, but it was only ten minutes in. He was being a little ridiculous. 

“A meeting ran over, sorry. I can talk now.”

He told her about his Christmas and complained about his mother for a long time. Which was valid. Liam’s mother was a shrew. Truly, the worst woman Fallon had ever met. And the bar was  _ high _ . Then she told him about hers. Minus the Kirby details. He didn’t need to know about that. He didn’t need to know that his fiancée had almost kissed her ex-girlfriend, who he thought was just her ex-friend. He needed to stay under the impression that Fallon did not like the other woman and had never once in her life felt anything other than platonic love and disdain for her. He was not to know otherwise.

“I miss you,” Fallon said. She missed him so badly. She couldn’t wait for him to come home. Partly because she hadn’t seen him in almost a week, partly because he seemed to be like a Kirby repellant. “Is there no way you can come home early? We can spend New Year’s together.” New Year’s Eve was technically their anniversary. But neither of them really remembered when exactly they got together. Fallon was convinced it was the thirty-first of December. But Liam thought it was the third of January. Very different pages.

He softened a fraction. Tutted softly under his breath. “Oh, I miss you too, Fal. But I can’t come home. My mom is… you know how my mom is.” She didn’t like it when he called her Fal. Though, she never told him that. He didn’t have to know that it was what Kirby used to call her. And why that was so haunting. “I really wish I could come back.” Back. Not home. “But I can’t. I’ll be home on the first, and we can do Christmas then.” Right. Of course. Just like always.

“Okay. It’s fine. I just really miss having you here.”

He chuckled and, and she asked him about the rest of his family. About his sister and her husband. And he obliged, always more than ready to talk about his older sister. Fallon had never met her but, judging by her Instagram, Chloe Lowden was someone Fallon would get along with.

Just as he was telling her a story about his Uncle Max, there was a knock on her door. It was still lunch. She had ten minutes left. She wasn’t working right now. But she said goodbye to Liam, anyway. Told him she loved him. Then called for whoever it was to come in without looking up. Oh, how she wished she had looked up.

Kirby Anders opened the door and froze on the spot as it slammed shut behind her. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out; her lips moving soundlessly, her eyes wide and her shoulders up by her ears.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Fallon said without thinking. She should not have said that. It was harsh and unnecessary. So unprofessional. While she had never been particularly polite, she could be nicer than that. Surely.

“I got a call last week from your assistant. She hired me to be the photographer for the green energy project? I’m sorry I’m late. My landlord called, and it took longer than I expected,” Kirby stammered, still looking like she wanted to bolt.

Since when was Kirby a photographer? Last time Fallon had checked, her ex-girlfriend was studying at the University of Western Australia to be a paediatric clinical psychologist; was about to get her master’s degree. That wasn’t exactly close to photography. Kirby’s Instagram didn’t tell Fallon everything, after all.

“Oh. Well, thank you for taking on the job. The project manager is in office nineteen, he can fill you in.” Fallon smiled and then looked back to her computer. She needed Kirby to get out of her office before her irrational pettiness take over and she fired the other woman. Thankfully, Kirby took the hint and scurried out of the office and down the hallway without another word. 

* * *

_ 31 _ _ st _ _ December 2018 _ _   
_ _ 16:45 _ _   
_ _ 3 years, 7 months and 19 days post-breakup _

Kirby knocked on the door of Fallon’s office four days later, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she waited for permission to enter. Fallon watched her through the small window in the door. She had her laptop bag over her shoulder and a coffee in each hand — an iced one, probably with four different flavour pumps and some sort of nut milk, for herself, and a hot one that was likely wrong, and for Fallon. She waved her in.

“Keith asked me to show you the pictures before he finalised anything,” Kirby said, her voice quiet and flat. She set the cups on the table and sat down in one of the chairs opposite the desk. Fallon guessed Keith was the project manager. That was news to her. “Um… do you still take your coffee the same way; black, one sugar? I kind of just assumed you do.” Kirby shouldn’t remember her coffee order. Not that it was hard. But it should have been long gone from her memory. So many things about Fallon should have been long gone from Kirby’s memory. But neither of them seemed to be able to forget a single detail about one another.

“Yeah, thanks. Great. How did it go Friday?”

Kirby summarised the shoot as she waited for her laptop to boot up. It had gone well, apparently. The weather had held up for them, and Kirby thought that the pictures had come out nicely. Perfect. Fallon didn’t have time for the project to have gone badly. She had a _ gender equality within the workplace _ initiative to promote in ten days’ time.

“Thank you for not getting mad that I took the job. I didn’t know you weren’t in acquisitions anymore, and I really need this,” Kirby said after a moment, typing her password into her laptop. She laughed a little, but it was clear she found no humour in the situation. “Honestly, when I came into your office last week, I thought you might fire me.” She looked at Fallon from the corner of her eye. Subtle, and only for a moment.

Fallon scoffed, but Kirby was right. Firing Kirby had crossed her mind. On several occasions. But she hadn’t. Character development, in her opinion. “I’m an adult, Kirby. I wouldn’t fire you for no reason. That’s how you get sued.” Fallon tapped her fingers on the desk. Kirby’s lip twitched.

The photos turned out great. Kirby was actually really talented. Not that Fallon had expected her to be  _ un _ -talented. But they turned out better than she’d thought they would. And Fallon told Kirby so as she was packing up her things and moving to leave. Kirby went beetroot.

“Thanks. A lot,” she said, zipping up her laptop bag. Then she unlocked her phone and opened the Uber app.

“Do you need a ride home? There’s no need for you to get an Uber or something if we’re going to the same place,” Fallon said a beat before Kirby made it to the door. She stared at Fallon for a second, the picture of scepticism. She shook her head.

“No, it’s okay. I moved back to my apartment yesterday.” Oh. Fallon hadn’t even noticed. 

“Yeah, of course. I can give you a ride home, anyway. It’s New Year’s Eve; those apps will be super busy. Let me give you a ride home.” Why was she pushing this; asking to give Kirby a ride? She didn’t want to spend a moment longer with her than was necessary. Yet, here she was practically begging Kirby to let her give her a ride home.

“Not a chance. I’d like to make it home alive.”

Fallon pulled a face, mostly unintentionally, then pursed her lips. “I’m a good driver!”

Kirby had the audacity to laugh at her. “You used to make me close my eyes when you parallel parked.”

“Parking and driving are very different, and you know it.”

“Okay, sure. Fine. They are different. But that doesn’t explain why you almost crashed on that bad road a mile away from the manor every time you drove on it, and almost got that DUI while sober in Savannah.”

“That’s an exaggeration. I got a ticket for reckless driving,  _ not _ for driving under the influence. And I thought we promised not to talk about Savannah? I don’t get why you keep bringing it up. It doesn’t exactly make either of us look good.” The Savannah Story made them look like terrible, terrible people. But that wasn’t the reason they didn't talk about it. 

Kirby rolled her eyes. “Sorry.” No, she wasn’t. She was never sorry. Ever.

A whole minute of silence — Fallon sitting at her desk, one leg crossed over the other and her hands folded atop her keyboard; Kirby standing at the door, her hand on the doorknob. 

“Am I giving you a ride or not?” Fallon asked a final time, leaning her head over her shoulder to look out the window at the weather. It was starting to rain.

Kirby hesitated, then rolled her eyes again. If she kept that up, they might roll right out of her head. “Fine.”

  
They left the office and walked to the parking lot in silence. They got into the car, and Fallon sighed as Kirby fastened her seatbelt. Despite the passive-aggressive undertones of their conversation, it was nice to talk to someone at work who didn’t want someone from her. Yes, it was a tad uncomfortable — she was small-talking with her ex-girlfriend — but it wasn’t unpleasant. It had been much, much worse for them.

Kirby gave Fallon her address and pulled her phone right out again. She hadn’t even said goodbye when she’d moved out of the manor over the weekend. Hadn’t even told anyone she was leaving. Typical.

“Ready to go?” Fallon asked. Kirby nodded politely, and they left the carpark. Fallon felt a familiar pull at the pit of her stomach.


	8. part eight

_31_ _st_ _December 2018_ _  
_ _17:15_ _  
_ _3 years, 7 months and 19 days post-breakup_

Their silence continued into the drive to Kirby’s apartment. Unsurprising. One of them would comment about how heavy the rain had gotten, the other would agree, and then they’d smile like they’d seen an acquaintance in the supermarket, and nod before looking away quickly. It was the same silence as always; excruciatingly similar to the last days of their relationship. Kirby had hoped she’d never have to experience it again, but she should have known better the second she’d bumped into Fallon. Their silence was inevitable.

Fallon seemed to be equally, if not more, uncomfortable than Kirby. Kirby could see Fallon’s mental battle between her disdain for silence and hatred for small talk. Fallon set her jaw as she stared forward, unblinking.

“How are your sisters?” she asked at a red light. Her well-manicured fingers tapped against the steering wheel, and she turned her head to look at Kirby expectantly. Small talk had won. And it must have been tough if her subject of choice was Kirby’s family. Usually, in the past, they didn’t talk about their families. Ever. This was a jarring change of pace.

Kirby said nothing for a moment, unsure of what to say at all. She hadn’t spoken to Darcy in years, and Rorey in months — which hadn’t been intentional, they’d both been busy. And her youngest sister was a bit of an emotional wreck, even still. Kirby didn’t really want to talk about them. And they really wouldn’t want Kirby talking about them to Fallon. Neither of them particularly liked her. 

“Rorey’s about to graduate high school. She got into art school in Sydney and she’s really excited about it. I think Darcy work in Queensland.” There was more than that, naturally. Darcy was engaged to a pastor fifteen years her senior and was a religious studies teacher, and Rorey had gotten pregnant at sixteen and had told no one for seven months. But Fallon didn’t need to know any of that. Kirby’s sister wouldn’t want her to know.

“That’s nice. Are you speaking to Darcy again?” Kirby would have bet every penny she had that Fallon already knew the answer to that question. Fallon already seemed to know anything.

“No.”

There was that silence again. Thick and angry and looming over our heads, waiting. For them to cave and speak again. For them to speak and get comfortable again. For them to get comfortable again and then ruin it and make everything worse than it had ever been between them. Make everything unbearable again, for both of them. It would happen, and they knew that. It was only a matter of time.

The rain continued to get worse as they made their way to Kirby’s apartment, going from a drizzle spattering the windscreen to almost torrential in a matter of thirty-five minutes. There weren’t any storms forecasted, but the rain was looking like it could turn to one. Kirby’s stomach dropped to her toes. She’d have to move out of the apartment again, and she’d have to move back to the manor. There was no way she’d be able to handle that again. She just couldn’t. Sure, she and Fallon weren’t on awful terms anymore, but that didn’t mean she wanted to have a slumber party with her ex-girlfriend. It wouldn’t work. It wasn’t happening.

By the time they got to Kirby’s apartment, the rain was so bad it was hard to see. Kirby couldn’t let Fallon drive in that; she could barely drive in regular conditions. Fuck.

“Come inside. I don’t think it’s safe to drive.”

Fallon scoffed, furrowing her brow and crossing her arms over herself. Stubborn, as always. “I don’t think that’s necessary,” she said. Apparently, Fallon was a fool now, too. She really had changed since Kirby had last known her.

“Seriously? You can barely see ten feet in front of you. I’m not letting you drive in that.” _Letting her._ As if Kirby had any say in what Fallon did. She didn’t five years ago, she wouldn’t now.

Fallon sighed but agreed, making a show of taking off her seatbelt and getting out of the car. She raised her handbag over her head to protect her hair from the rain and followed Kirby across the parking lot. 

She seemed almost out of body as she walked into the apartment building, noticing how close together the doors were. How small everything was. They used to live in an apartment building a mile and a half from here, and Fallon had lived there longer than Kirby had, but just the idea of being there looked to be upsetting to Fallon. Like she’d forgotten she used to live like that. 

They walked up the seven flights of stairs to Kirby’s apartment. Both because the elevator was known to shudder and the lights blinked in time with one’s heartbeat, and also because Fallon was so afraid of elevators she may have died if she ever had to ride in one with such faulty wiring. The stairs were concrete, and the walls were yellowing and flaky, and brown and moulding at the ceiling on interior walls. Fallon frowned, keeping towards the middle of the staircase.

Kirby flicked on the light switch of the main living area of her apartment and beckoned for Fallon to follow her inside. Fallon’s scowl grew smaller but remained on her lips. The sparseness of the space was suddenly blatant to Kirby. The rugless wood-look floor and the artless cream walls and the throw-pillowless second-hand settees. It was clean, at least. She would have cried if she’d brought Fallon to a messy apartment. Fallon hated little more than mess.

“Do you want something to drink?” Kirby asked, placing her laptop bag and purse on the sad excuse for a kitchen island — it was more a table with a fake marble top bolted to the floor than anything — her jacket still wrapped around her shoulders. It was cold. The heating still didn’t fully work yet. Not that it had ever worked properly. She opened the fridge to find it nearly empty. God, she hoped Lilah was bringing home groceries. They sorely needed some. “Uh… We have Diet Coke or water…” _Bottled_ water. That must have been left over from the last time her father was there. Bottled water wasn’t a luxury she and Lilah often had. “Or I can make you another coffee?” There was also tea but Lilah may have exploded had Kirby given Fallon her precious earl grey.

“I’m good, thanks.” Fallon still stood in the doorway, stiff as a board. As though someone had rooted her to the spot; like she wasn’t allowed to move further inside. “Your home is lovely.” Perhaps the most civil she had ever said. The worst told lie, too.

“Thank you.” Kirby closed the fridge again and shrugged off her coat, laying it over her bags. She crossed to the main living area to sit on the off-white, threadbare couch that faced the balcony. A spring poked the top of her leg. They needed a new couch, too. In all honesty, they needed a new apartment.

After a moment, Fallon finally moved from her spot in the doorway and sat on the other couch. The faded black faux-leather one covered in pen marks and Henry’s scratches and had a hole in the right arm. She placed her damp handbag on the floor at her feet and crossed her ankles, her hands clasped tight to her knees. She sat with perfect posture, her back straight and her shoulders back and her jaw parallel to the floor. So neat and tidy compared to the rest of the room. Compared to Kirby.

Henry, who had been asleep atop his cat tree in the corner when they’d arrived, leapt to the floor and stared at Fallon from across the room, his amber eyes unblinking, tail dragging back and forth behind him. Kirby watched both of them, her eyes flicking between them until Henry got to his feet again and padded towards the other woman, nuzzling his head on her bare leg before jumping into her lap. Fallon gave a surprised _hmph_ before stroking between his ears with her index and middle fingers, almost absent-mindedly. Like it was second nature. Like this was still a common — no, daily — occurrence. 

It was very reminiscent of the day Kirby brought Henry home. A girl in her Intro to Psychology class’s family cat had just had kittens, and had advertised selling them on Facebook. Kirby had no self control and brought one home that day on the way home from class. Without consulting Fallon. It had gone better than she had expected, though Fallon had still yelled at her and made her sleep in the guest bedroom (the room that was supposed to be Fallon’s) that night. But Henry had always liked Fallon more than he had liked Kirby.

“How’s… uh… Liam?” Kirby asked after what felt like fifteen minutes of them sitting there saying nothing. She wasn’t sure why she was pretending she didn’t remember Liam’s name. They’d met only a week ago, and she’d known of his existence for eighteen months before that. She wouldn’t just forget about him. “Is he spending Christmas with his family?” It was a stupid question. And she didn’t want to know. Information about her ex-girlfriend’s new fiancé was useless to her. If everything went her way, she’d never see him again. But, she could not bear the not-talking. She couldn’t just sit in silence with Fallon until the rain stopped. It might kill her.

The rain still beat against the windows, rattling them in their already brittle frames.

“Yeah, he’s in New York with his mom and his uncle. He’s good, he’s good,” Fallon said. “He’s coming home tomorrow.” More of a warning that a just-to-let-you-know. Fallon was telling her that this sudden, and very strange, new closeness was to be put to an end in the next twenty-four house. That Liam coming back would put everything back in its place and everything would go back to normal. Fallon would stay in the manor and marry Liam and live happily ever after. Kirby would stay in her apartment and finally summon the confidence to actually ask Lilah to be her girlfriend and maybe get another cat, call him Vincent.

“You must be excited to see him again. It’s been a week, hasn’t it?” Why was she still talking? She needed to shut up. Asking Fallon how much she missed Liam was probably the least productive thing she could do. Kirby didn’t need to know. Didn’t want to know.

Fallon nodded and cuddled Henry closer to her. He purred, satisfied with the attention. Kirby pursed her lips and crossed her arms. A very Fallon move.

“I’m sorry about the way he acted the other day. Ever since I came out to him… he didn’t take it the way I wanted him to,” Fallon said, shifting uncomfortably. She looked to the ceiling and then to the floor. Kirby hadn’t expected her to have come out to Liam. Fallon didn’t come out to anyone. She technically had never even come out to Kirby. They kind of just started dating. “And he’s really weird about grudges, I guess.”

“It’s fine. Me being there was probably weird for him, too.” God, Kirby wished that the topic of conversation would move to anywhere but Liam. She wished she had never brought him up. Liam was the last thing she wanted to talk about, would ever want to talk about.

The sound of keys in the door. Unnecessary, but Lilah didn’t know that. Kirby was supposed to still be at work. Her meeting with Fallon, not that Kirby had told Lilah who she was working with, was supposed to last until six. Plus, the drive from Buckhead. It was barely six now.

“Oh, you’re home. Hiya, babe,” Lilah said. Shut the door behind her. She didn’t have groceries. And she hadn’t noticed Fallon yet. This wasn’t going to end well. Kirby clenched her teeth and ground them together. Fallon stiffened, and Henry leapt from her lap and scurried away and into Kirby’s bedroom. “I thought you wouldn’t be home until after dinner.”

“My meeting didn’t take as long as I thought it would. Did you get home okay in the rain? It’s crazy out there.” Kirby stood from the couch and met her roommate in the entryway. Stall. Lilah was sopping wet, her hair dripping onto the floor and her glasses fogged up and smeared with raindrops. Kirby lifted the glasses from the other woman’s face and wiped the lenses with the hem of her sweater before handing them back. Fallon’s eyes burned into them. She cleared her throat, looking for some kind of introduction; attention. “Oh, excuse me. Lilah, this is my… this is Fallon. Fallon, this is Lilah.”

Lilah knew who Fallon was. Had a strange fascination with Fallon. In Kirby’s absence from Atlanta, her ex-girlfriend somehow blurred the lines between capitalist oil heiress and socialite famous for her bold, ridiculous outfits and questionable decisions. TMZ reported on her now. Like she was some sort of celebrity. She was the product of nepotism and fortunate genetics. And, famous to the point that Lilah brought her up before Kirby did.

“You’re from here, right?” Lilah had asked one evening while they were making dinner. Risotto. Kirby nodded. It wasn’t entirely inaccurate; she’d gone to high school and most of college in Atlanta. But close enough. “So, then you know who Fallon Carrington is?”

Kirby stopped thinking for a moment, her mind blanching of all information and her stomach twisting into a million tiny little knots. “Yeah, I know her,” she said after far too long. It was embarrassing. And it was putting things lightly. “Why?”

“She just got engaged. Her ring is beautiful.” Lilah preheated the oven. “Have you seen?”

Kirby had seen. Fallon had plastered it all over Instagram, and so had TMZ, and so has every local fashion or gossip page. It was hard not to have seen. “Yeah, I did. He’s a lucky guy.” That was a stupid thing to say about her ex-girlfriend to her current almost-girlfriend. 

Lilah had looked at her weird, stared her down. She’d known something was wrong. And wasn’t afraid to ask about it. “Wait, did you mean that, like, you _actually_ know her? In real life?” She had sounded so impressed. As though knowing Fallon Carrington was the single greatest thing Kirby could ever do. 

“Yes, I guess. Not really anymore. She’s my ex-girlfriend.” She needed this conversation to end. She wasn’t ready to have it. 

Lilah scoffed. “Sure thing. Like you dated _Fallon Carrington_.” She didn’t believe Kirby. As if Kirby would lie about something like that. “She’s the straightest woman I have ever laid eyes on.”

“Oh, please! She wears pantsuits and can’t drive. I’m telling you, we dated for like six years. You can check her Instagram; I’m still on there.”

Were they really arguing about whether Kirby dated Fallon? Bickering, really. This was a new low. Kirby had fought for years to keep her relationship with Fallon secret, and now she was just telling anyone about it, apparently. If Fallon knew about this, and she never would, she’d lose her mind. They’d pink swore they wouldn’t tell anyone this side of the Pacific.

Lilah pulled her phone from the pocket of her hoodie and rolled her eyes. “All right then. When did you break up?”

Thirteenth May, twenty-fifteen at four-forty-five in the afternoon, but there wouldn’t have been photos of them together until she scrolled back months before. “Summer of twenty-fourteen.” 

“Oh, my God. You did. How did I not know this? I was living here by then. I was following her.”

“Fallon isn’t out. We kept it pretty well under wraps. Just don’t say anything about it, okay?”

“I won’t. And I’m sorry I brought her up.”

So was Kirby. And they barely mentioned Fallon again. Though, Lilah continued to like her photos. And Kirby pretended not to see.

Lilah sent an incredulous look towards Kirby, then grinned widely. “Nice to meet you. So nice to meet you.” She kissed Kirby’s cheek, her eyes on Fallon before moving slowly towards her bedroom. Jealousy radiated off of her like heat. She was trying to get a rise out of Fallon, as though Fallon would still have feelings for Kirby after three and a half years, and when she was engaged to someone else. It was a sight to behold.

“A pleasure, I’m sure.” Fallon folded into herself; making herself as small as possible. Tried to fade into the scarred cushions of the sofa. The rain eased a fraction. Coming in sheets instead of bullets. Lilah disappeared. Kirby breathed a nervous laugh.

Fallon left an hour later. The rain was still going, but visibility was better. Kirby felt like she’d been dragged out of water and could finally breathe again.

* * *

_31_ _st_ _December 2018_ _  
_ _20:00_ _  
_ _3 years, 7 months and 19 days post-breakup_

 **_@monicacolby:_ ** _hey! i know this is super last minute but we’re having a nye party at the club tonight you should come!_ [seen; 20:17]

Kirby locked her phone and turned to Lilah, who was curled on the other couch reading _Gone Girl_ like it was two thousand and seven.

“Hey, babes. My dad needs me to come over. He wouldn’t say why. I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

“That’s fine. Just let me know when you’ll be home, okay?”

 **_@kirbyanders1;_ ** _sure thing! I’ll be there (:_

And Kirby went to get ready for the New Year’s Eve Party at Club Colby. Which was perhaps the opposite of meeting her father. And the first lie Kirby had ever told Lilah. It would not be the last, that she was sure of.

  
  



	9. part nine

_14_ _th_ _March 2009_ _  
_ _09:30_ _  
_ _6 years, 1 month and 29 days pre-breakup_

Kirby was already out of bed, leaving her side of the bed cold in her absence, by the time Fallon’s alarm startled her awake. She silenced it and rolled to her stomach and shoved her face into the pillow, groaning at the thought of having to get up.

It was strange that Kirby wasn’t there. It was always a battle to get her out of bed in the morning; usually took at least thirty minutes to get her up. Which always made her late. But it was her birthday, Fallon supposed. And her mom wouldn’t be awake for much longer. She’d wake up early for that. Always.

Fallon got out of bed and pushed her feet into her slippers, grabbing her dressing gown and wrapping it around herself. Kirby was probably in the bathroom. But then the en-suite and both the upstairs bathrooms were empty. Fallon tied her robe at the waist and started downstairs. She could hear the coffee machine whirring and the sizzle of something in the frying pan from the kitchen when she reached the dining room. Kirby sat in her regular seat at the table, Anders in the seat next to her. They were reading a birthday card from her mother, stepfather, and her two half-sisters. It was homemade; made with pink craft paper and Crayola Supertips and had a photo of the five of them from a few years back pasted under the messily scrawled _Hapy 16th Birfday Kirby!!!_ Spelled wrong. Rorey, who was seven, must have written it. It was adorable. Kirby was close to tears and Anders was rubbing her back, looking like he was in physical pain. The same as it had been last year. Probably the same, but opposite, to how it had been since her first birthday.

“Good morning!” Fallon said after a moment. After she was sure the moment had ended. “Happy birthday, Kirb.”

“Good morning, Miss Carrington,” Anders said, standing from his chair and moving towards the kitchen. “Your breakfast will be out in a few minutes.” And he left the room.

Fallon sat down in her chair, directly facing Kirby, and placed a napkin in her lap. Kirby said nothing. Read her card again. She wouldn’t dare share it with Fallon. Even for them, it was too personal. Fallon didn’t know what Kirby got in her birthday cards from her mom, and Kirby didn’t know what Fallon’s got in hers. They didn’t talk about their mothers. It was strictly off the table. 

“You’re up early,” Fallon said. She crossed her legs under the table and placed her hands on her knees.

Kirby wiped her eyes and sniffed. “And you’re up late.” A water chuckle and a roll of her eyes. “It’s my birthday. I was excited.” Her mom called. Kirby didn’t _wake up early_. Not even for school.

“You should have woken me up.” Fallon tutted, scratching at a pluck in her pyjama bottoms.

Kirby shook her head. “You’re quiet when you’re asleep. I’d hate to ruin that.”

“You’re lucky it’s your birthday, Anders.” Fallon raised an eyebrow and pretended to pout.

They needed to talk about what happened the night before. Not now. Obviously. But soon. Preferably before everyone arrived in a few hours. She couldn’t bear to see Trixie if everything that had happened had gone unaddressed. They had kissed. Or rather, Fallon had made out with Kirby, who’d kind of just went along with it. They needed to talk about it, badly. And they needed to do it soon.

They ate their chocolate chip pancakes and bacon and drank their no-pulp orange juice in silence. Fallon stared at Kirby, and Kirby stared at the photograph of her family on the front of her card. They were sitting on the sofa in front of the window in their house back in Australia. Kirby sat sandwiched between her mother and stepfather, Thomas, with Darcy and Rorey sitting on their knees. All five of them smiling widely. She missed them. Of course, she missed them. They were her family. She’d spent the first fourteen years of her life with them. But the way she looked at that photo was as if she wanted to go back to them. She hadn’t seen them since last summer, after all. And that was, perhaps, Fallon’s greatest fear.

Fallon had lived in the manor without Kirby for fourteen years, and has wished that Kirby lived there for ten. She didn’t think she’d cope without Kirby there with her. She’d only just got what she’d been asking for since she was four years old, she couldn’t lose that. 

It was ridiculous, but she needed Kirby. As stupid as it was to admit, she needed Kirby like she needed oxygen.

Fallon got a two-thousand-and-nine cobalt blue Volkswagen convertible and half of Tiffany’s for her sixteenth birthday from her parents. Kirby got three Mac lipsticks, two Gillian Flynn books, and a twenty-five-dollar gift card to H&M from her father. Fallon wasn’t privy to what she got from her mother.

“Happy birthday!” Fallon said again. And this time she got her _thank you_. She handed Kirby the small package and the envelope, and their fingers brushed during the transfer. Fallon almost cried.

Kirby opened it slowly. She was the type of person who peeled off the tape and didn’t rip the wrapping paper and would save the ribbon tied in a haphazard bow. Because she was a big sap who was as sentimental as the day was long.

“Oh,” she said. The word small and fractured, but grateful. A pair of diamond earrings. Small and square and delicate. Impersonal but expensive. Fallon was never great at gifts; tended to throw money at things and hoped for the best, even from a young age. But the earrings weren’t the real present; it was inside the envelope. “They’re beautiful! Thank you so much!” Kirby stood up from the other overstuffed sofa and scurried across the rug to hug Fallon. Tight. Fallon held her tighter.

“Open your card.”

A nod, and Kirby did as she was told. Two tickets to see Paramore in New York seven months from then.

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Fallon, you _did not_.” Kirby was more excited about two strips of paper that cost sixty bucks than a four-hundred-dollar pair of earrings. Typical.

Fallon smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear. Shrugged. “It’s nothing, really.” It was everything. Kirby was everything.

Kirby got ready in her own bedroom, which was the first clue as to her not wanting to speak to Fallon. But Fallon couldn’t bear that. She had to talk about this or she may explode. She had to talk about this before Trixie arrived or she’d explode. This couldn’t sit and stew and simmer all day. It just couldn’t.

“Can I talk to you about something?” she asked, pushing the door open. Kirby’s bedroom was small and slightly claustrophobic. The walls were painted pale yellow and a pink threadbare rug spread across the floor, one corner wedged under a post of the twin-sized bed. Posters of Hayley Williams and Megan Fox and Buffy the Vampire Slayer covered the wall above the desk, and the vanity mirror was plastered with pictures of Kirby and her friends printed on regular paper.

Kirby shrugged, not bothering to say anything or turn around. Fallon sat on the bed next to her. Kirby rubbed concealer on her nose with her ring finger on her right hand. 

“About what happened last night,” she said, admiring a photograph of Kirby and Trixie from Valentine’s Day. She’d never seen it before. It was nothing special; it was just them sitting on a bench in Centennial Olympic Park that a stranger must have taken. But Fallon couldn’t take her eyes off it. “I think —” 

“Not now, Fallon. We’ll talk about it later. I don’t have time for this.” Kirby stood from her bed and walked over to her closet. “Everyone will be here soon. You should go get ready.” Fallon had been ready for over an hour.

“Oh. Okay, sure.” And Fallon left the room.

Trixie arrived first. Because of course she did. Kirby answered the door. They kissed in the doorway where no one but Fallon would see. Smiled like seeing one another was the greatest thing to ever happen to them. Trixie wore a white floral sundress, despite it still being March, and pink lipstick and small flicks of eyeliner. Half of her waist-length hair was split into two little pigtails, the rest of it straightened into shiny black sheets. 

They called other _babe_ . Singular. Kirby called Fallon _babes_. Plural. She made sure to differentiate them. Trixie was her girlfriend, and Fallon was a fool.

Martha and Monica and Genevieve came together fifteen minutes later, all three of them wearing inappropriate outfits — for their age, the weather, and a small get together to watch shitty horror movies in the media room. Which looked to be a trend. Fallon pulled the sleeves of her sweater over her hands as she watched them come in through the front door. Martha hugged Kirby on her way in and squealed something Fallon didn’t catch. Monica followed suit, talking quickly. Genevieve offered a pained smile and a brief hello and made a beeline for Fallon. She wasn’t particularly fond of Kirby, because she had no taste in friends, and the feeling was mostly mutual.

“Hey,” she said, stopping at Fallon’s side in the doorway between the lounge and the foyer. Her hazelnut brown hair fell in ringlets down her back, her round face caked with Maybelline’s Dream Matte Mousse three shades too dark for her. She pulled at the hem of her crop top as if she was trying to hide her pierced navel, then crossed her arms over herself, crumpling the corner of Kirby’s card, a twenty-dollar-bill probably threw inside on the way there, with her long, bony fingers. “You look like someone’s just ran over your dog. What’s with the face?”

Fallon choked on nothing. “What do you mean ‘What’s with the face?’? There is nothing wrong with my face.” She elbowed Genevieve in the ribs, still staring at Kirby and Trixie from the corner of her eye. “Just because you don’t want to be here doesn’t mean that’s the case for everyone else.”

“Oh, please. If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be. I just think you’re jealous that you don’t get to spend her birthday alone with her.” Genevieve Meadows was, for the most part, evil. Has been since Fallon met her at the start of middle school. She stole people’s clothes after gym class and started a rumour that Robby was gay after he broke up with Fallon (untrue and especially despicable) and refused to talk to the scholarship kids. Except for Monica. Monica was the exception. “You’re mad that today isn’t just for you and your girlfriend.”

Fallon’s face went beetroot. Kirby, as much as Fallon wanted her to be, was not her girlfriend. She was Trixie’s girlfriend. And Genevieve didn’t even know that. She was just pulling things out of thin air to be awful on purpose. She’d only arrived three minutes ago and was already bored.

“Don’t be a bitch. I’m going to talk to Monica.” Fallon left Genevieve sulking in the doorway.

“God, I was kidding! Learn to take a joke, Fallon! Seriously.” 

Was it really that obvious that Fallon had a crush on Kirby? Genevieve had a talent for sniffing out crushes. She was like a bloodhound for things like that. But no one had ever mentioned it before. Could people tell that they’d kissed last night? Had something changed about them? Surely not. That didn’t happen. No one knew. And no one would ever know.

Except Kirby knew because Fallon was utterly stupid when she was sleep deprived, apparently. She should not have kissed Kirby or asked her to break up with her girlfriend or done anything she’d done the night before. Fallon wasn’t even sure if she _did_ like Kirby like that. Sure, it was the best kiss she could imagine, and every time Kirby looked at her she thought she might pass out, but that didn’t mean anything. The tingles when they touched and the constant butterflies and the burning, monstrous jealousy of Trixie didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t mean anything. Fallon could not ruin her friendship with Kirby. It was the only thing keeping her afloat.

After a while, they migrated to the media room and watched _Final Destination_ until Martha screamed to turn it off, and Fallon felt nauseous. They’d only gotten fifty minutes in, but it was awful. How Kirby was able to sit through it, and on a semi-regular basis, was baffling. And maybe a little concerning.

Kirby turned the movie off and the six of them sat in the dark and the quiet for several long minutes. Kirby was on the other end of the row, sandwiched between Martha and Trixie. Monica and Genevieve sat between Trixie and Fallon. Fallon didn’t want to sit next to Kirby. She didn’t want to speak to Kirby. She didn’t want to look at Kirby. She couldn’t bear it.

“Cake?” Kirby suggested, standing from her chair, pulling Trixie up after her. It was a wonder Genevieve was only catching on now. There was a murmur of agreement and they traipsed downstairs to the kitchen. Fallon asked Anders to get the cake ready, since Kirby thought asking herself would be self-centred or something. Which was ridiculous. But Fallon always did as Kirby asked her.

They sang “Happy Birthday” and Anders told Kirby to _make a wish, darling._ She blew out her candles and stared straight at Fallon. Fallon wanted to leave.

Everyone left at half after nine. Left Fallon and Kirby sitting in the lounge, on opposite side of the room. They had spoken once since Trixie arrived. Because Trixie came into a room and consumed everything. Kirby’s attention was on her. And only her. And never on anything else. Trixie was the only person Kirby cared about.

And because Genevieve had gotten into Fallon’s head. She’d needed to put as much distance between herself and Kirby as possible — so she didn’t ruin everything; reveal everything. That was if she hadn’t done so already. And, she probably had. It was what she was good at.

“You were quiet today,” Kirby said from the other side of the room. She sat cross-legged, picking at her cuticles. She didn’t look at Fallon, her eyes on her chipped nail polish instead.

“You said you like it when I’m quiet,” Fallon said. Bit out, really. More aggressive, spiteful, than she would ever mean to be with Kirby. Fallon opened her mouth to take it back, but continued instead. “You were having fun with Trixie. I didn’t want to interrupt.” Laying the guilt on thick. _Since when do you put your relationship above me?_ Never. The answer was never. Fallon was top of Kirby’s list of priorities, and she knew that. She would always be top of Kirby’s list of priorities, and she knew that. There was nothing more she could ask for. And here she was doing it, anyway.

“Trixie is my girlfriend. I wanted to spend the day with her.” Kirby looked up finally, drummed her fingers on her jeans. Toeing the line between calm and furious. “And I’m not breaking up with her for _you_ ,” she said from between clenched teeth, her lips dancing the line between neutral and a frown. Furious it was. Fallon flinched. Kirby had never spoken to her like that. Ever. Fallon didn’t think she ever would. “You shouldn’t have kissed me last night. It… that’s not happening. I love you, but not like that. You’re like my sister.” her voice was firm, almost severe. Fallon had made a terrible, terrible mistake. She had destroyed their friendship. Things were going to be weird and _wrong,_ and it was all her fault.

Her _sister._ God.

Fallon stood up from the couch and took three steps further from Kirby. “I’m sorry,” she said, trembling all over. She couldn’t believe she’d done that. “I didn’t mean to— ” She didn’t get any other words out before she went to her bedroom. Kirby, for the first time but not the last, didn’t follow her.

* * *

 _23_ _rd_ _April 2009_ _  
_ _15:45_ _  
_ _6 years and 20 days pre-breakup_

“Trixie broke up with me,” Kirby said, standing at the end of the bed. Mascara-stained tears streaked down her face, smudging her cheeks charcoal. Jagged breath in. Broken breath out. She hadn’t knocked. Just walked in, a moment short of sobbing, and announced she was now single.

Fallon and Kirby hadn’t spoken a word to one another since Kirby’s birthday. Sat in dead silence at meals and switched seats away from each other in class and split their friend group clean in half. Genevieve and Monica stuck with Fallon; Martha and Trixie with Kirby.

Fallon hated Kirby (no, she didn’t), yet she wanted nothing more than to have her with her. It felt wrong not speaking to her. Even before, when Kirby lived in Australia, they called each other at least twice a week and emailed almost every day. Fallon felt like she was drowning without Kirby. But this… This wasn’t how they were supposed to make up. It was supposed to come with an apology. Not a breakup. Trixie hadn’t been the problem. Fallon was the problem. This was wrong.

“Oh, Kirby.” Full name. Now wasn’t the time for a nickname. Fallon stood from her desk chair, where she’d been doing her physics homework, and walked towards the other girl, an arm’s length away from her. She didn’t want to breach any boundaries that Kirby had erected in their time apart. It had been a month — longer — after all. “I’m so sorry.”

Kirby sniffed. Nodded. Wiped her eyes. She raised her arms to put her hands through her hair, batwinging her jacket sleeves. The cuffs were damp. Opened her mouth; no sound. Visible swallow.

“Do you need anything?” Fallon reached her arm out to Kirby, asking for permission. For what, she wasn’t sure. To hold her? To just be there for her? Kirby shook her head. Fallon’s arm dropped; denied. “Then why are you here?”

Kirby inhaled sharply. “She said she couldn’t be in a relationship with me when I’m in love with someone else.”

A beat of charged silence. The electricity prickled the hair on the back of Fallon’s neck. The air crackled. _What the ever-loving fuck did that mean?_

“That’s ridiculous. You’re in love with her. I’ve seen the way you look at her’ heard the way you talk to her. Talk about her. It’s like there’s nothing else in the world when she’s around you. She’s dumb if she can’t see that.” Fallon’s throat closed tighter with every word. It was the truth. The truth she’d been repeating under her breath to herself for months. “She was so lucky to have you, and it was just stupid of her to give that up.” Now, she was gushing. About Kirby. To Kirby.

“She said the same thing about you.” The walls crept closer. Kirby’s hands flexed. Her jaw tightened. Fallon’s knees threatened to collapse beneath her. “And she was right.”

This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening. Fallon couldn’t let it happen. No matter how much she wanted it to. She couldn’t handle it; could never handle it.

“Kirby, no. Stop it. Go call Trixie and tell her she’s wrong. Because she is. You are not in love with me.” Even Fallon could hear how blatantly false the words were. It was almost painful. “You said I’m like your sister. Go tell her that!” Her eyes burned. Jaw ached. Head fogged. This wasn’t happening.

“I’m not going to lie to her.”

Why wasn’t Kirby upset? She’d just gotten broken up with. When Robby broke up with Fallon, she didn’t get out of bed for an entire weekend. The tears weren’t for Trixie; they were for Fallon. Kirby had probably seen the breakup coming. She wasn’t good enough of a liar to keep a crush on her best friend secret from her girlfriend.

“Then lie to me!” So desperate it hurt. “You can’t do this to me, Kirby. You can’t.” Because Fallon didn’t know what she’d do with herself if Kirby did.

“Just a month ago, weren’t you the one who wanted me to break up with her?”

Fallon’s blood boiled. She wasn’t sure why; Kirby was telling the truth. That was exactly what had happened. But it was three in the morning and they were so close and… And... it was different.

“I— ” Fallon shook her head, cleared her throat. “Get out.”

“What?” Kirby’s expression hardened and her arms fell limply to her sides.

“I think you heard me fine. I want you to get out of my room.”

Kirby looked to the ceiling but didn’t roll her eyes. Ran her tongue along her teeth. “Fine. Whatever. Don’t speak to me.” She slammed the door when she left, stomped down the landing like a toddler having a tantrum. Fallon’s chest was so tight she thought she was dying.

* * *

 _5_ _th_ _May 2009_ _  
_ _19:30_   
6 years and 8 days pre-breakup

Fallon was eighty-seven percent sure that the Paramore concert was the one and only thing keeping her friendship with Kirby alive. It’s all they talked about. _If they don’t play “Misery Business” I’ll be so upset. Has your dad booked the hotel room yet? How long are we in New York for?_ And the concert wasn’t until October.

They sat on the floor of Fallon’s bedroom, in the alcove where her dollhouse used to sit. The space hadn’t been repurposed. When they were twelve, and the dollhouse had been freshly removed from the room, they would sit and do their homework in that space. Hide from Blake and Alexis’s fighting. Stay up too late in secret. They hadn’t sat there in years.

“I’m not mad at you anymore,” Kirby said very suddenly. As though she’d remembered and was afraid she’d forget again if she didn’t speak as soon as possible. She sat up straight and leant on the wall behind her, stretching her legs out so they rested over Fallon.

Fallon rolled her eyes. “Nice to know.” They weren’t doing homework or hiding from her parents or staying up too late in secret.They were sitting there doing nothing and staring at one another, looking for inspiration. “Why were you mad at me, again?” As if she didn’t know. Kirby was mad at her for rejecting her. It was a stupid reason to be mad at someone. But Fallon was afraid there was more to it than that.

“I was mad at you because you were being the rational one for once. I didn’t like it.” She smiled a fraction, closed her eyes. Pause. Fallon’s heartbeat thudded in her ears. “I never thanked you for talking some sense into me that night. I needed it.”

“Uh huh.” Fallon nodded, moving her gaze from Kirby to the floor. Yup, that was exactly what had happened. Definitely. She’d talked Kirby out of doing something stupid. Not saved herself from becoming a rebound. Definitely not. “Actually— ” No. She hadn’t meant to say that. No.

Kirby coughed out a nervous, breathy laugh. Her teeth were working at the nails on her left hand. Gross. “Actually, what?”

Actually, nothing.

“I wanted to… I don't even know how to say this.” Fallon wished she’d just kept her mouth shut. Kirby didn’t need to know. It wouldn’t change anything. Fallon heaved out a breath and forced herself to look at Kirby. If she was about to admit this, she could at least have the decency to make eye contact. “I didn’t want to talk sense into you that night. I wanted…” She swallowed thickly, unsure of what she was about to say. “I knew Trixie was right, and the feelings are mutual.

Kirby nodded, suddenly quite pale. This wasn’t new information to her. Fallon had kissed her, and even Genevieve had picked up on her feelings. Kirby didn’t get to act surprised. She said nothing.

“I get that you don’t feel the same way about me, and that’s fine. I understand. But that night, you were hurt, and you knew that if you came running to me, you’d get the attention you wanted. If I had given in, we would have done something you’d regret, and I couldn’t handle that.”

“I would have regretted it,” Kirby said, so quietly Fallon almost didn’t hear her. “But I do feel the same way.”


	10. part ten

_31_ _st_ _December 2018_ _  
_ _22:30_ _  
_ _3 years, 7 months and 19 days post-breakup_

Fallon stepped from the car and slammed the door. She smiled and gave a short, curt wave to the paparazzi huddled down the street. Most of them were there for her, which was still an odd sensation, and a few clusters of lights flashed as she passed. She could already see the headlines that would come out the next morning. _Trouble in Paradise? Fallon Carrington Attends NYE Party Without Fiancé Liam Ridley._ They’d leave out the detail that Liam was in a different state, of course. Because that would be a boring headline. 

She hadn’t even entered the building, and it was too loud. Club Colby was always too loud. Without fail. Top Forty drivel pounded from overhead speakers and there were far too many people to push through on her friends’ table in the VIP section, especially alone. Genevieve and her husband, Pierre, sat on one end of the booth with Monica, and an already tipsy Martha and Robby — her boyfriend, Fallon’s ex-boyfriend — were at the other. Fallon guessed she was sitting with them. Great.

“Where’s Liam?” Martha asked once Fallon was within earshot. She flipped her long, dark hair over her shoulder and pressed her mostly silicon lips together. Martha was short and overweight and pretty in a way that made Fallon jealous when they were teenagers. She had straight across bangs and waist-length jet black hair, straight from a box. Fallon narrowed her eyes at her. Monica waved over a member of staff and a Southside was in front of Fallon in a matter of seconds.

“He’s still in New York with his family.” Fallon sat down next to her and tried to put as much distance between herself and Robby as possible. He still looked relatively the same as he did when they were teenagers: too-long blond hair, acne-scarred cheeks, a nose that had been broken at least twice playing hockey. They’d seen one another a handful of times since they’d graduated high school, and they hadn’t spoken since they broke up. She hadn’t said a word to him, and he hadn’t said a word to her. About each other, absolutely. It had been an excess of ten years, yet the bitterness was still stuck between her teeth. She’d known Martha since she was eight years old. And she knew her well. But Fallon still could not believe that Martha and Robby would dare start dating. Despite her having gotten over her ex-boyfriend a _long_ time ago, the thought of them together was still incredibly odd to her.

Genevieve waved at Fallon from across the booth, her other hand resting on her baby bump, and her head resting on her husband’s shoulder. Shoulder-length silverish hair fell in soft waves in front of her pale, freckled face. Her septum piercing hung lop-sided from her long, slightly crooked nose. She smiled a gap-toothed smile. Pierre waved too, his medium brown skin flashing purple and navy and orange under the lights of the club. His hair was dark and messy, and his glasses were a little foggy. He was French and liked to remind everyone at every chance he got. Neither of them said anything.

“Still? Christmas was a week ago.” Monica didn’t look up from her phone, but judgement was still clear in her tone and down-turned eyes. She didn’t like Liam much; didn’t like anyone Fallon dated much — except Kirby, but Monica didn’t know that. Fallon figured out early on that, similarly to the way Martha did apparently, she attracted _meh_ guys. Except for Liam. Liam was different. At least, Fallon thought so. Monica did not.

“He’s coming home tomorrow morning. His mom likes him to stay until New Year’s.” Fallon got defensive, and she wasn’t sure why. She and Liam had been together for over two years, and these had been the circumstances since before they’d even met. This wasn’t weird. This was how their relationship worked. They dropped the conversation.

Fallon swept her eyes across the room, taking her attention from her friends, who were each giving her their own confused — or in Monica’s case, exasperated — looks. The line for the bar was the longest she’d ever seen it and was getting longer. People were milling up and down the stairs, squeezing past one another and causing exchanges of choice language. Kirby and Sam were on the other side of the room. Because of course, they were. It wasn’t as though Fallon was uncomfortable enough already.

Kirby was wearing the same plasticky black dress she’d worn the night they’d first bumped into one another under her godawful pink denim jacket with a pair of white tennis shoes, her hair scraped up in a ponytail. Sam was wearing a silk animal print shirt and black leather trousers. They looked a ridiculous pair.

A million and one questions lined up to be answered. Why were they here? Who invited them? Since when was Kirby a regular at Club Colby? She should have known Fallon would be here tonight. Sure, they had been getting along, but this didn’t seem appropriate. Fallon was here at her friend’s club. Kirby was impeding.

“Is that Kirby?” Genevieve asked, scowling. Her eyes were trained in the same place Fallon’s were. To Sam and Kirby dancing to some Post Malone song. Fallon averted her gaze and grabbed her drink, tapping her fingers on the glass. Sip. She couldn’t be caught staring at her ex-girlfriend. Not that they knew Kirby was her girlfriend. It was just…

Fallon could not be caught staring at Kirby.

“Yeah,” Monica said with a small shrug. “I heard she was back in town and I invited her. You know, for old times’ sake.” Fallon crushed her straw with her back teeth. Her questions had answers and she didn’t like them.

“Was she here at my birthday; that was her, right?” Martha asked, her words beginning to slur together. Fallon nodded, still staring at the hem of her dress as though it would get her out of this situation.

“Why did you invite her? She’s, like, a huge bitch, or whatever,” Genevieve said, still looking in Kirby’s general direction. Genevieve and Kirby had never gotten along. Not in high school. Not in college. They would never get along now. Genevieve didn’t like Kirby. The feeling was mutual. Kirby once said Genevieve had the personality of a Kraft Single, which — while incredibly rude — wasn’t entirely inaccurate. “What were you thinking, Mon?” Genevieve aimed her question at Monica but moved her focus from Kirby and Sam to Fallon, who hadn’t said anything about the matter yet. She didn’t want to say anything. She didn’t want anyone to say anything about it.

“Oh, come on. She’s really not that bad,” Monica said.

“Didn’t she leave without telling anyone and then ghost all of us for, like, a whole year? Seems pretty bitchy to me!” Seven months. Kirby ghosted them for seven months. Not a whole year. But Fallon didn’t correct her. It was bad enough she remembered, she didn’t need everyone knowing she remembered.

“She had her reasons, Gen. You know that.”

They kept going, but Fallon stopped listening. It was too loud. It was too hot. It was too much for her. She wanted to leave. But, unlike usual, there was attention on her now. Her role as entertainment was suddenly very relevant. She couldn’t just slip out the fire door next to the downstairs bathroom and disappear for half an hour. Someone would actually notice this time. A truly unfortunate turn of events.

Why the hell had Monica invited Kirby out? It had to be some sort of sick joke. She mightn’t have known the exact circumstances or details, but she knew that Fallon and Kirby weren’t anything close to friendly. The last they’d spoken of Kirby, which was admittedly years ago, Fallon had cried about what a terrible person she was. Monica had no right to invite her here.

“Excuse me,” Fallon said, standing from the table and walking away before she even got a reaction from anyone. Her hands shook, and the ground swayed beneath her feet. Her grip on the bannister tightened as she walked downstairs, her vision blurring around the edges. She needed fresh air. She made it to the fire exit, mostly by muscle memory, and burst through it, panting when the cold air smacked her up the face.

Fuck, it was cold. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. No one else was around, mostly because the fire exit door held a sign reading: _Only Use in Event of Emergency._ Fallon had been ignoring it for over six months, it wasn’t going to matter now. She pulled in a breath, then pushed it out again. Her ears stopped ringing. Her heart was still beating like she was in physical danger. She shouldn’t have this reaction to seeing Kirby — or speaking about her. Whichever Fallon was reacting to. She had to get used to this.

Fallon had a feeling that her friends had been a moment away from moving their conversation towards her, and would start asking her too many questions. Despite her fervent denial, she knew they knew about her and Kirby. She knew everyone knew about her and Kirby. They weren’t exactly subtle, looking back. They were two sixteen-year-olds who lived together and made virtually no effort to hide their relationship. Their ‘hiding it’ was simply not addressing it. It was as if they thought not talking about their relationship made it a secret. That’s not how that worked.

But, despite all that, she still wasn’t ready to talk about it. Not with her friends. Not with anyone. Probably not even with Kirby. They wouldn’t ever have to talk about their relationship again, anyway. So Fallon would never have to talk about their relationship again. It was in the past, and it would stay there. There was no need to dig it up and dwell on it when it had been dead for years, was there?

“Are you okay?” The voice came from behind her. She whipped around to find Genevieve standing at the door. She too had a blatant disregard for the sign. 

It took her friends thirty-five minutes to send someone looking for her.

Fallon blinked hard and cleared her throat. “Perfectly fine.”

Genevieve hummed in response, coming to stand next to her. She opened her tiny purse and took out her phone. She typed something, her acrylic nails tapping obnoxiously on the screen. “I’m just letting Pierre know where I am. I told him I was going to the restroom, and he’ll send a search party.” 

Fallon nodded but kept her mouth shut. Of all her friends, she’d thought Genevieve the least likely to follow her out. She wasn’t exactly a compassionate or empathetic person; had never been.

“We notice you disappearing all the time, you know,” she said, twisting the rings on her fingers and staring at Fallon expectantly. 

Fallon shrugged. Of course, Fallon knew that. They made fun of her for it often, but she never thought they’d cared. They never stopped her or followed her out to make sure she was okay. Fallon’s disappearing act was a routine part of their night’s out, like Monica getting annoyed at one of them or Martha getting upset over something stupid. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to reply. _I didn’t think anyone cared,_ which was her first thought, made her seem sad and lonely.

“It’s just way too loud in there. It’s… It’s a lot.” She still refused to look at Genevive; to admit to herself that she was having a genuine conversation with her. Genevieve was the friend who brought you a bottle of gin after a breakup to drink away your problems, not one you talked things through with. 

“You’re allowed to be mad at Monica for inviting Kirby. _I’m_ mad at Monica for inviting Kirby. She was our friend, and she just left without saying anything. She broke your heart, Fal. You being overwhelmed is valid.” 

“You didn’t even like her. You two were hardly friends.”

“That isn’t the point! She made you go all the way to Australia just to break up with you!” Genevieve clapped her hand over her mouth the moment the words passed her lips. A frustrated groan muffled out against her palm. “I’m sorry, I—”

“You knew this whole time, didn’t you?” Fallon’s words shook like their foundations were crumbling. “Did you tell people?”

Genevieve shook her head, expression like a deer in the headlights. “No, never. We never talked about it. It’s not something you just talk about, Fallon.” She crossed her arms and rubbed her lips together like she’d just applied lipgloss. “I knew you had a crush on her when we were in high school, but I wasn’t sure anything happened until you came back from that trip. I’m sorry I ever brought it up. It really wasn’t any of my business.”

Fallon felt like she was going to vomit. She wished Genevieve hadn’t followed her. She wished she hadn’t come tonight. She wished Kirby was back in Australia. Fallon shook her head and walked to the other side of the small alley, shaking her hands out at her sides. Her friends accidentally admitting that they knew about the relationship she’d convinced herself was secret was not something she’d expected when she’d left the house an hour before.

Kirby appeared at the fire door, looking a hair flustered. She looked between Fallon and Genevieve and then walked past, pulling a pack of cigarettes and a neon pink lighter from her jacket pocket. She put the cigarette in her mouth and lit it as she passed. Fallon hated it. Kirby had picked the habit up from Martha when they were juniors in high school, and it had stuck until they had almost finished college. Fallon had thought it had stopped then, but clearly not. Kirby didn’t get over things that quickly.

Genevieve took one look at Kirby and went back inside without another word. Blush crept up her neck and disappeared under her foundation. The fire door swung shut behind her.

Fallon and Kirby stood three metres apart on the same wall, staring at one another. It felt wrong, but as though someone had forced this. Like this was a plan. And Fallon hated it. But she hated silence more.

“You remembered one this time,” she said, taking a step back to lean on the wall. The bricks scratched her arms, leaving white geometric lines on her skin. “A lighter, I mean.”

“I did. I stole it from some guy last week. Well, I forgot to give it back,” Kirby said, crossing one leg in front of the other and pulling her dress down her legs with her free hand. She laughed a little, a crackle to it. Fallon’s lips twitched. “Monica said you were upset and sent me down, by the way. I’m not following you, I promise. So, I’m obligated to ask if you’re all right.”

Fallon swallowed her annoyance with Monica and pushed it to the back of her mind. This wasn’t Kirby’s fault. And, for once, Fallon could see that. “It was getting too much for me in there,” she said, exhaling harshly through her nose. “Martha and Genevieve were being… You know how they are. I needed fresh air. And then Genevieve followed me and… I just want to go home, honestly.”

Kirby nodded, tapping the ash off the end of her cigarette. She said nothing for a moment, and neither did Fallon. She watched the coloured lights flash from one of the frosted windows on the top floor of the building. She could have stood there forever.

“Do you want to talk about it? You don’t have to. I don’t even have to stand here with you. I’d like to think you like me more than Martha, but I know I’m not your ideal company.” Which was exactly the reason Fallon had spent two hours in Kirby’s apartment earlier that day. Because Kirby wasn’t her ideal company. That was a thought Fallon would unpack later. 

“As soon as I arrived, Martha started interrogating me about Liam. And she’s dating Robby now? Did you know that? Bitch.” Fallon paused and shook her head, taking a deep breath to calm herself down. Kirby looked slightly alarmed. Probably because, unlike with Genevieve, Kirby and Martha had been friends in high school. They took the same AP classes and applied for Stanford at the same time. Neither of them ended up going, but Fallon supposed it was a bonding experience. They met up over semester breaks and when Martha visited from Brown. They got matching straight-across bangs right before their senior prom. They were friends, or at least used to be. “And then Genevieve spotted you and started…” Fallon trailed off. She didn’t have to — shouldn’t — tell Kirby that Genevieve was being awful. But she should probably mention what they’d talked about right before Kirby had arrived. “She knows about us. Has known since the beginning.”

Kirby dropped her cigarette, although it was only half burnt-out. It might have been an accident. She crushed it under her sneaker, anyway. “Oh,” she said, walking to stand closer to Fallon. Too close to Fallon. And then nothing. No _we probably should have known that._ No _how come she never said anything?_ No _well, what are we going to do now?_ Nothing.

Since her return to Fallon’s life, Kirby had confused her. She thought she had to hate the other woman — that was her first instinct, anyway — but she could never bring herself to. Fallon hated a lot of things about Kirby: her nervous habits, her clothes, her compulsive need to be right, to name but a small few, but she could never hate Kirby herself. It was against Fallon’s nature.

Kirby dropped her hand, and her fingers brushed against Fallon’s. A current of electricity travelled up Fallon’s arm and her breath caught in her throat. Kirby was unfazed.

“Are you sure you don’t mind standing out here with me? It’s cold out and” — Fallon pulled out her phone and checked the time. God, she’d been outside for close to an hour — “it’s almost midnight. You really don’t have to do this. Won’t Sam be looking for you?”

Kirby laughed. It almost sounded genuine, but Fallon hadn’t heard a genuine laugh from Kirby since twenty-fourteen, so what would she know? “It’s only eleven forty-five. It’s fine. And, Sam is bugging Jeff about something. He probably hasn’t even noticed I left yet.”

Fallon nodded, scrubbing her arms with her shivering hands as she tried to warm herself up. It didn’t work. They stood in silence for another few moments, Kirby grinding her teeth a little. She knew how much that got on Fallon’s nerves, so Fallon cracked her knuckles; it gave Kirby the heebie-jeebies.

“I don’t think you remember this, you were pretty drunk, but, fifteen minutes from now, we had our first kiss ten years ago.” Kirby turned around to face Fallon, her face against the cold, damp wall. God, she was so pretty. “It doesn’t feel like that long ago.”

“Our first kiss was on your birthday. It won’t be ten years until March,” Fallon said, wracking her memory for a kiss before that. She couldn’t recall one. Their earliest romantic interaction was in the early hours of Kirby’s sixteenth birthday when Fallon had convinced her to leave Trixie for her. Or almost had. Tried to.

“We were at Robby’s party, and you were really mad at him for some reason. We kissed because you said you liked my lipgloss, and we promised not to talk about it.”

Fallon laughed like a car alarm. She wasn’t sure why Kirby had brought this up. Why did they have to talk about this? It hadn’t even been a week since they’d almost kissed, and they’d agreed it was a bad idea. Not to mention they were both in relationships. This was so incredibly odd.

“Sounds about right,” she said, nervousness crawling down the back of her neck. “But I don’t remember.”

Kirby huffed out a laugh, short and hollow. She turned away from Fallon again and took a few steps forward. Put a few metres between them, hands joined behind her back. Grinding her teeth. She was always grinding her teeth.

The music inside the club cut out. _“One minute to midnight!”_

“We should get inside,” Fallon said, her gut plummeting at the thought of having to go back inside again. She looked to the fire door and began sweating.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Kirby said, rocking back and forth on her heels. “I can stay out here with you, if you want.” Forty seconds.

“You really don’t have to do that.”

“But do you want me to?”

Fallon swallowed. She couldn’t say yes, couldn’t ask Kirby to stay with her. She needed to go inside and bring in the new year with her friends — the friends who didn’t leave her for Australia, never to be heard from again.

“Yes, please. If you don’t mind.”

“Of course not.”

The countdown began, and Kirby stood next to Fallon again, her body leaned towards her, her cheek pressed to the wall.

Three.

Two.

One.

An ugly remix of “Auld Lang Syne” erupted from the speakers inside, and a chorus of tipsy sing-alongs, too. Fallon uncrossed her arms and turned towards Kirby. Moving for the first time in over twenty minutes.

“Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year, Fal.”

 _Fal_. That couldn’t be allowed anymore. Kirby shouldn’t be allowed to call her that anymore. Only Steven, on the rare occasion she saw him, was allowed to call her that.

“Let’s get out of here,” Kirby said, her breath visible in the freezing air.

“And do what?” Fallon choked on nothing.

“We can watch a movie or something. You don’t want to be here, and neither do I. Let’s get out of here.”

Fallon nodded and stood up straight again. “Okay. Give me a minute, I need to get my things from the table.” 

She wrenched open the fire door and weaved through the swarms of people crowding around the top and bottom of the stairs. Pierre and Genevieve were dancing, and only Robby was at the table. She grabbed her bag and jacket and turned to leave again.

“Where are you going?” Robby asked. The first time he’d spoken to Fallon since he broke up with her for being _self-centred and intolerable to be around_. 

“Home.”

“With Kirby?”

Fallon bristled.

“You’re engaged, Carrington. Remember that.”

She turned away from him and left again, proud that she hadn’t punched him.

Fallon climbed into the taxi after Kirby and gave her address without asking the other woman. She thought that, perhaps, going back to the apartment Kirby shared with her girlfriend might be a bad idea. Not that that had ever stopped them before. Bad ideas were their Kryptonite.

The house was empty, dark and quiet. Their footsteps echoed against the marble floor of the foyer as they made their way to the stairs. Blake opted out of his annual New Year’s party this year. Had decided to keep things low-key. He had too much on his plate as it was without planning another unnecessary event. Or, that’s what he claimed. He was probably getting drunk at the yacht club instead, surrounded by other old, rich white guys. As God intended.

Fallon and Kirby would watch the movie in Fallon’s room. It was more comfortable than Kirby’s, with heating that actually worked and enough room for both of them to sit and a TV they could watch the movie on. First, Kirby went to her bedroom to change, already unzipping her dress before she’d reached the door. Fallon watched her disappear before going into her own room, not bothering to shut the door behind her. It wouldn’t matter if Kirby walked in; she’d seen it all before, anyway.

She changed into a pair of old pyjamas — a pair of black cotton ones with pink polka dots that she’d owned for well over five years and only came out when she was ill — and went to remove her makeup. Her bathroom was cold, having accidentally left the window open before she left. She closed it and then got to work with her cleanser. Kirby came into the bedroom as Fallon was applying her moisturiser.

“What do you want to watch?” Kirby asked, already sitting on the left side of the bed. The side she used to sleep on when they were together. She sat cross-legged in a pair of red and white Minnie Mouse pyjamas. The kind you would only ever find in a Forever 21. She put her phone down when Fallon sat next to her, on the right side of the bed. The side she used to sleep on when they were together. She still slept on the right side of the bed, even now. Even when Liam slept on the left.

“I don’t mind. Whatever you want.”

They ended up watching _She’s the Man_ ; an old favourite of theirs. They used to watch it on Kirby’s birthday and the last day of summer before school. Fallon had continued this tradition when she did her master’s degree, and even found herself staring at the movie on Amazon Prime March past. She didn’t end up watching it, but the inclination had been there.

Kirby fell asleep first, right around the halfway mark. Fallon followed suit not long after. Tangled together. As it always should have been.

* * *

 _1_ _st_ _January 2019_   
_05:00_ _  
_ 3 years, 7 months and 19 days post-breakup

Fallon woke up the next morning wrapped in Kirby’s arms. She groaned, a headache settling itself and beginning to throb as a reminder to never let Monica order her a drink again. She’d been learning that lesson for ten years now. Kirby’s arms clutched her tighter, pressing Fallon into her body and keeping her in place. Kirby was still asleep, snoring softly.

Fallon turned in Kirby’s grasp and pulled her duvet over her again, and closed her eyes.

Old habits die hard.


	11. part eleven

_ 1 _ _ st _ _ January 2019 _ _   
_ _ 11:15 _ _   
_ _ 3 years, 7 months and 19 days post-breakup _

She didn’t want morning, but it came anyway. Bouquets of weak morning light creeping through the slanted blinds and a shift in the weight of the mattress woke Kirby. She stretched out her arm to find the right side of the bed empty; the duvet pushed down in Fallon’s absence. Kirby lifted her head from the makeup-stained satin pillowcase and caught a glimpse of Fallon digging through her closet.

“What time is it?” Kirby asked, her voice hoarse from the night before and thick with sleep. She pushed the comforter from her body and slid her feet to the rugged floor, the air warmer than she’d expected.

“Eleven. Get back in bed,” Fallon said. She closed the closet door with a defeated sigh and walked to the dresser on the other side of the room. 

Kirby squinted at her, still not fully awake. “Where are you going?”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Fallon opened a drawer, then closed it again. Opened another. “I’m trying to find a sweater or something. It’s cold.”

Kirby snorted. She’d almost thought Fallon was leaving her there. “It’s really not that cold. I bet it’s like ten degrees colder in my room.”

Fallon found an old university hoodie — one of Kirby’s old university hoodies. It was a stolen one. Fallon didn’t have any of her own. She pulled it over her head and got back into bed.

“You know, I’ve kind of missed having you around,” she said, turning on her side to look at Kirby. She propped her elbow up on a pillow and rested her head on her hand. It was like they were twenty-one and waking up late on a Sunday after spending the night before marathoning the  _ Bring It On _ series. Familiar in a good way; the best way. “I haven’t argued with anyone about how to stack the dishwasher in way too long.” Mostly because Fallon hadn’t stacked a dishwasher since Kirby left.

“I guess I kind of missed being here too, in a way. And, I missed talking to you. I know I’m not supposed to anymore, but you…” Kirby trailed off and looked at the ceiling. She wasn’t sure how she had planned to finish that sentence. There was no way to finish that sentence without ruining everything. So she didn’t. But Fallon nodded sympathetically. Like she too had simmering feelings she didn’t understand. Feelings that were about to bubble over.

They lay there in silence for a while, and Kirby could have stayed there forever if she thought it was at all tangible. She’d spent her teenage years thinking that she would stay there forever. But that wasn’t the case anymore. And would never be the case again. 

“Where did you tell your girlfriend you went last night?” Fallon asked, trying to sound casual. She didn’t, but Kirby appreciated the effort. It was the same as the day before when Kirby had pretended not to know Liam’s name. She did, and she knew Fallon knew Lilah’s name, too. But that’s what you did when you talked to your ex about their new relationship.

Lilah wasn’t Kirby’s girlfriend, but it was close enough that she didn’t correct Fallon. If anything, she decided that she’d ask Lilah out, finally, when she got home. It had taken her long enough.

“I told her I was coming here,” Kirby said with a shrug. As though it was the most obvious thing in the world not to lie to her partner. But such a thing was never obvious to Fallon. 

“And she was okay with you spending new years with your ex-girlfriend? Right after I was in your house for seemingly no reason?”

“There’s nothing for her to be jealous of, is there?” Kirby had meant it to be a joke, but it came off as a genuine question. Like she was asking Fallon to make Lilah jealous. “Lilah and I are in a relationship, and she knows that you’re engaged. She doesn’t think something’s going on.” She also didn’t know that Kirby was with Fallon, but that information would never help her case. 

“Oh, that’s very mature of her.” 

Kirby wanted to ask if Liam wouldn’t feel the same, but she never got the chance.

“Fallon?” Liam came through the bedroom door, an overnight bag over one shoulder. “Your dad said you weren’t up yet and… Oh. Am I interrupting something?”

Kirby immediately scrambled out of bed and began gathering up her things to leave the room. She didn’t need to be here for this. She didn’t need to see the argument that was about to happen. None of this was any of her business.

“No, don’t leave on my account. It’s fine. It’s good to see you two getting along, actually. Can I just borrow Fallon for a second?”

Kirby froze and turned to Fallon, who hadn’t moved. Her lips were moving, but no sound came out. She was speechless for what must have been the first time in her life.

“What’s wrong?” Liam asked, still standing in the doorway. He shrugged off his jacket and laid it over the back of the chair at Fallon’s dresser. “Am I missing something?” There was no malice in his voice, no hurt. He was being genuine. He didn’t know.

“Nothing,” Kirby said, short and strangled. Oh, how she wished she could lie. “You’re not missing anything… But I’ll let you two talk.” But she stayed still. She couldn’t move.

“What’s going on?” Liam asked. He was close to the end of the bed now, wearing a grey pullover and clearly expensive jeans. Brow furrowed, jaw tight but not clenched. Confusion caked on his face like makeup. “You’re acting weird, and it’s freaking me out.” Something had clicked.

Fallon hadn’t told him. Fallon and Kirby would have been married now hadn’t Kirby moved back to Australia, and Fallon knew that. Knew that their relationship ending had little to do with their relationship and almost everything to do with their circumstances. They’d have everything they’d ever planned, had everything fallen into place. And Fallon just pretended it never happened.

Fallon hadn’t told him. Pretended she and Kirby had nothing. They had spent eighteen years together, both platonically and romantically, and Fallon had discarded it to the back of her mind as if their relationship was something worth forgetting. Kirby had dated two women, including Lilah, since she and Fallon broke up, and she’d told both of them about Fallon. Six years, they were together, and Fallon had just  _ left it out _ .

_ Fallon hadn’t told him. _ This shouldn’t have been cutting Kirby as deep as it was. It should barely break skin, itch more than hurt. Her fingers flexed, and she dropped her arms to her sides. Maybe this wasn’t her place. But this wasn’t about Liam. It was about Fallon throwing out their relationship like it never meant anything to her. Kirby knew for a fact that their relationship meant everything and more to Fallon... once. Kirby meant everything and more to Fallon. In past tense, of course.

God, she didn’t tell him.

Fallon climbed out of bed, shivering slightly, and shook her head. “Kirby, can you give us a minute?” Gladly. Kirby would rather be anywhere else.

“No, stay. And tell me what’s going on here.”

“Nothing’s happening. We watched a movie last night and she fell asleep. And she’s trying to leave.”

“You told me there was nothing between the two of you,” Liam said something more than hurt but not quite anger colouring his voice. Like he’d visited this scenario when he was overthinking late into the night and couldn’t sleep  –  not something that nagged him properly. Like he’d believed Fallon and the mere thought of her lying to him was not only groundbreaking, but it was soul-crushing, too. The poor man had no idea what he was getting into. He laughed, dry and without humour, and shook his head. “I’m so stupid. Of course, there was something going on. I’m an idiot for believing you when you said there wasn’t.”

“There’s nothing going on between us,” Kirby said, all too quickly. Way too fast. She was a bad liar and worse when she panicked. This was worst-case scenario.

“It really looked like something is going on.” Petulant. He was like a child.

“Well, there isn’t. We’re just friends, and we haven’t seen each other for a long time. We watched a movie and I fell asleep, that’s all. It isn’t a big deal.”

“I knew something was up that first night she was here,” Liam said as though Kirby wasn’t in the room. He was so angry, he was calm and Kirby had to stop herself from backing away from him. “You look at her the way you look at me. Maybe there isn’t something going on, but you clearly still have feelings for her!”

Kirby stopped breathing for a moment. She needed to get out of the room. And now.

“No, Liam. I’m  _ not _ in love with her. She doesn’t mean anything like that to me.” Fallon looked like she was going to cry.

Kirby wasn’t supposed to get offended. Fallon was only trying to save face, keep her relationship alive and well. And Kirby shouldn’t mean anything to Fallon anymore. They’d been broken up for three-and-a-half years. Exes that far gone shouldn’t mean anything anymore.

“Excuse me,” Kirby said, finally pushing past Liam. “I should really get going now. I need to go home.”

Fallon stared at her, something unreadable spreading across her features. She said nothing, though. Too busy speed running thought every emotion to speak. And Kirby left the room, slightly breathless.

* * *

_ 1 _ _ st _ _ January 2019 _ _   
_ _ 13:45 _ _   
_ _ 3 years, 7 months and 19 days post-breakup _

Kirby turned off the shower and stood there for a moment; naked, hair dripping on the tiled floor. Her skin shone red from where she’d tried to scrub the scent of Fallon’s perfume from her skin. She wrung out her hair and stepped from the shower, wrapping a towel around herself.

She returned to her room, a familiar ache in her chest at the sight of her barren bedroom. She’d come full circle. It was the same way it was when she moved back two weeks ago. As much as she felt she needed to get out, she hated to leave the house she’d grown up in again.

She sat down on her bed and stared at the three photographs taped to her vanity mirror. In the first, she was with Martha, probably drunk. They were bleary-eyed and grinning like idiots. Fallon and Monica and Genevieve were in the background. Kirby was almost sure it was from the summer before their senior year in college  –  or maybe her birthday that year? Her junior year was a total blur, and only five years ago.

The next photo was of her and Fallon at the last football game in their senior year of high school. They were wearing fake varsity jackets and Uggs and sat on the bleachers, surrounded by other Pennley students. They were holding hands, and Kirby’s head was on Fallon’s shoulder. It was a wonder that no one had figured them out yet. Except Genevieve, apparently.

The last photo was taken the night Kirby came out to Fallon. They were stood outside the cinema, posing dramatically. They were fifteen, about to turn sixteen, if Kirby remembered correctly. The photo was a punch to the gut and made her heart race. It had been taken ten minutes -- if that before she told Fallon she was a lesbian, and she could still feel the nerves over ten years later.

They looked so different in each of the photos, and it caught Kirby off guard. They were still dyeing their hair. Kirby was badly fake tanned, and Fallon was ghostly pale and slightly anaemic. Kirby realised that, on top of being drunk, the reason Fallon didn’t recognise her that first night in Club Colby was that Kirby looked like a different person.

Her stomach dropped at the sight of them, so dizzily giddy in each other’s presence. It felt wrong that their relationship had gone from that to whatever it was now. The thought of how different their relationship was from when they first got together was compared to now was enough to put a lump in her throat. They’d promise to stay together forever. Their forever barely lasted six years and ended in a cheap hotel room in Perth.

Kirby walked to the dresser and plucked the last photo from the mirror and stared at it, the pang in her chest developing to a dull ache. She didn’t miss it, her relationship with Fallon. Not anymore. She’d talked herself out of that years ago. But the photographs brought back feelings she wasn’t allowed to have anymore. If Kirby was still in love with Fallon, which she wasn’t, she’d be afraid of what that meant. For her and Lilah. For her and alone. And for her on her own. But, thankfully, she wasn’t still in love with Fallon. And, even if she was, that ship sailed years ago. They weren’t meant to be, as much as that still hurt.

Kirby changed back into her dress from the night before and began her walk of shame. Which wasn’t really a walk of shame, but she was still embarrassed as all hell. All she had on her was her bag from last night, containing her phone and her keys and her lipstick, and the pyjamas she’d missed when packing the last time she left.

“Escaping already?” Fallon closed her bedroom door. The words were supposed to be playful, probably, but they came out strangled and gravelly. She was still wearing Kirby’s UGA hoodie. Kirby didn’t have the heart to ask for it back.

Liam had left while Kirby was in the shower, and she had heard most of the yelling. She was almost sure they’d broken up. Over her. That didn’t feel right. It shouldn’t have happened. Kirby never meant to cause that.

She nodded, walking from her bedroom door to the top of the stairs. Her father was waiting at the bottom for her. He was her ride home. “Yeah. Lilah’s expecting me.” No, she wasn’t. She hadn’t spoken to Lilah since she left the house the night before. She hoped Lilah wasn’t expecting her, actually. Just thinking about what that conversation would look like was mortifying.

“I didn’t mean it when I said you don’t mean anything to me,” Fallon said, walking towards the stairs. She smiled sadly and crossed her arms. “You do, even still. Liam can just be…” She didn’t finish her thought. Kirby guessed what the ending was. _Protective._ Probably. _Jealous._ More likely. _Not a fan of me having sleepovers with my ex-girlfriend._ Absolutely certain. Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been flattering. Fallon would have said it, otherwise.

“I get it,” Kirby said. Because she did. But that didn’t stop her from wanting to cry. “It’s okay.” It was okay, but Kirby didn’t want it to be. She wanted a reason to be mad at Fallon. But she didn’t have one. She couldn’t get mad at Fallon because she was trying to keep her relationship afloat; couldn’t get mad at Fallon for being rational. For moving on. It had been too long not to move on. This was a Kirby issue, not a Fallon one.

“I’ll see you around?” Fallon had reached the stairs. A metre away from Kirby. “Maybe soon?” It sounded like an invitation but Kirby couldn’t bear accepting it; following up on it.

“Yeah. I’ll see you around, Fal.”

Kirby went downstairs and followed her father to his car. She knew she was about to get a lecture from him. He always had a lecture planned for when Fallon was involved.  _ She’s a bad influence. All she does is hurt you. Why do you keep running back to her?  _ It was getting old. Even if he was right. Fallon was a bad influence. And all she did was hurt Kirby. And Kirby did keep running back to her. But that was when they were younger, teenagers. Kirby was twenty-five years old now. She thought she was old enough to make her own decisions without her father having to steer her away from things he didn’t like. He’d practically raised Fallon, had a great influence on how she turned out. Kirby didn’t understand what his problem was.

“Is there a reason you had a sleepover with Fallon last night?” Were his first words as she fastened her seatbelt. “You do know that she’s engaged  – to a man?” As though Fallon being attracted to a man took away from what she’d had with Kirby. Like Fallon’s relationship with Liam cancelled out her relationship with Kirby. That wasn’t how it worked.

She grimaced at him. “Nothing happened. We watched a movie and I fell asleep in her room. It’s no big deal.” it was a big deal  – sort of. It was a little bit of a big deal. But only slightly. It wasn’t as though they were going to get back together now. Or anything of the like. They watched one movie and stayed together for one night. Why was everyone wigging out about this; making it more of a thing than it was? If Kirby didn’t see it happening, then no one else should. Simple as that.

He didn’t believe her; hadn’t believed a word she’d said since she told him her trip back to Perth would only last a few weeks. “I don’t understand your fascination with her. What is so great about her that you can’t stay away from her?”

Kirby killed the comment on her tongue about his hypocrisy and undying loyalty to the Carringtons. “I do not have a fascination with her.”  _ Liar _ . “She’s my friend and has been since we were little. She was more than just my girlfriend, Dad.”

Her father said nothing more on the subject.

* * *

_ 1 _ _ st _ _ January 2019 _ _   
_ _ 15:30 _ _   
_ __ 3 years, 7 months and 19 days post-breakup

Kirby pushed open the heavy door of her apartment building and sighed as she started up the seven flights of stairs. Her cold-numb hand gripped the bannister as she walked, still shaking slightly from her encounter with Fallon and Liam. She hadn’t calmed down yet. She shouldn’t have needed to calm down. There was nothing to be upset about. Fallon hadn’t told Liam about them, and obviously hadn’t any plans to, either. But that wasn’t any of Kirby’s business. Fallon wasn’t one to come out in the best of times. Sure, Kirby thought that would be different with Liam, given their relationship, but it didn’t have to be the case. Fallon didn’t have to jeopardise her actually successful relationship by telling him about her and Kirby. That was a sure-fire way to send anyone packing. Kirby didn’t have the right to be upset with Fallon, but seeing her again had only reignited the emptiness in her chest.

Lilah sat on the sofa closest to the door, reading a sci-fi paperback. The news was playing muted on the TV. She closed her book and got to her feet at the sound of Kirby entering the apartment. Lilah moved to kiss her, but Kirby shook her head. Lilah stepped backwards, nearly colliding with the couch, and nodded.

Kirby made a beeline for her bedroom and flopped backwards onto her bed with an exhausted groan. She’d gotten a good amount of sleep in the most comfortable bed she’d ever slept in, but that didn’t make her any less hungover — or upset.

“Are you okay?” Lilah stood in the door, leaning on the frame. “Where were you last night? I waited up for you, but you didn’t come home.”

“Sorry. I crashed at my dad’s.” No comment on how  _ okay _ she was because, frankly, she wasn’t sure.

Lilah sat at the end of the bed. “Were you with Fallon?” She sounded hurt. And almost had the right to be.

Kirby nodded. Her body felt heavy, weak. “We watched a movie.” She didn’t elaborate further. She didn’t want to. 

Lilah didn’t say anything for a moment; studied the room as she held her silence. She frowned, tutted, and shook her head. “You know, I really care about you. I thought we had something, thought we were doing something. I should have known that I could never compete with Fallon Carrington. I was dumb to think I could.” No, she wasn’t. Kirby was just an asshole.

“You’re not competing with anyone, Lilah. We were drunk and we watched  _ She’s The Man.  _ Nothing happened.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me you weren’t coming home?”

“Because I knew you would react like this,” Kirby said. “I knew that it would look bad, and I don’t want you to be mad at me. I really care about you too.”

Lilah pursed her lips. “And you care so much that you told me you were going to see your dad, but you were photographed leaving Club Colby with your ex-girlfriend, and you stayed with her?” Her voice cracked on the last syllable. Kirby didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything. 

Lilah waited for an answer When she didn’t get one, she let out an exasperated breath and stood from the bed, and left the room without another word. Kirby wished she hadn’t.


End file.
